Tatarstan holding off on introducing four-day working week

“We are taking the wait-and-see position”

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov approved the construction of two sections of Moscow-Kazan highway on September 18. The ministry of transport and the ministry of economic development have developed the compromise version of the construction of the highway, divided into stages.

It is planned to build a road from Moscow through Vladimir to Arzamas (it is about 350 km with a preliminary estimated cost of 185 billion rubles), as well as to bypass Kazan (more than 140 km worth almost 180 billion rubles) by 2024.

Let us remind that the project of the Moscow-Kazan highway is included in the comprehensive plan for the modernization and expansion of the main infrastructure until 2024 and is part of the created corridor Europe-Western China. The investment volume of the project is estimated at 539 billion rubles, 216 billion of which is planned to attract from extra-budgetary sources.

The official representative of the Kazan Kremlin, Lilia Galimova, has announced the position of the republican authorities on this “indefinite” decision.

“We have previously adhered to the position that it is necessary to repair the M7 highway, as well as to build a new road. I think there will be the next decisions on the expansion of the route itself where there are several sections. In general, we are very pleased that the first decisions have been adopted in this direction, but so far we are taking a wait-and-see position. At the moment, there are no deliberate steps on our part,” the representative of the Kazan Kremlin commented.

“Enterprises are not ready to switch to a four-day working week”

Another exciting topic for Tatarstan citizens, announced at the briefing, was the possible transition to a four-day working week. As Realnoe Vremya has reported earlier, the federal experiment to test the transition to the four-day working week can be carried out at Tatarstan enterprises participating in the national project Labour Productivity and Employment Support.

Today, 44 companies of the second and third echelons from different cities — Kazan, Naberezhnye Chelny, Almetyevsk, Mendeleevsk — have joined this project. They cannot be called massive in terms of the number of employed workers, the revenue of the majority varies in the range from 50 to 500 million rubles. However, among them, there were also some city-forming enterprises which accumulate in themselves over 5,000 workers. First of all, it is Zelenodolsk Shipyard JSC and Production Association named after Sergo JSC, Kazan Aircraft Production Association and Chemical Plant Karpov in Mendeleevsk. At the same time, KAMAZ does not participate in this federal national project. However, among its participants, there are many enterprises from Naberezhnye Chelny — Remdiesel JSC, TEMPO Kama Plant of Metal Structures, Tatprof, RIAT.

As our publication has managed to find out, Tatarstan enterprises reacted to the initiative to introduce a four-day working week with great anxiety. The republican authorities, in turn, hastened to reassure them.

“We believe that this initiative is worthy of in-depth analysis before it is applied. As far as we know, the federal ministry of labour , which is working on this issue, also has not yet formed a final idea of how it should be implemented,” explained Lilia Galimova. —“As for the enterprises, there is no such directive that ‘you have to’. There is an idea, but now it needs to be analyzed from an economic and practical point of view. It's not our prerogative to analyze. We can just say for ourselves that today the enterprises in the republic are not ready to switch to a four-day working week.”

Let us remind that the statement on the possibility of introducing a reduced working week in Russia was made at the International Labour Conference in Geneva this June. Speaking at it, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev noted that technological progress can reduce working hours by increasing labour productivity.