The collective of teaching and training
staff, who are organized in a trade union belonging to the Siberian Confederation of Labour (SKT)
has until now resisted all attacks from corrupt members of the local administration to
close the club and destroy its work among the underprivileged children of
the working-class suburb where it is located. This conflict between the
staff and the administration has been going on for a long time, wages were
not paid and a necessary reparation of the building that should have been
done and paid for by the administration and thus the tax payers of the city
was constantly put of by the responsible part of the local government. As a
result of the direct actions and a hunger strike that took place this spring
the club managed to survive until the summer. Nevertheless a decision was made
by the local administration to reorganize the club and change it into
a commercial entertainment center for young people while the teaching staff
and the headmaster lost their jobs. Because they did not agree with these
decisions the staff decided to protest with another hunger strike. On the 4th of august,
the local government sent a paramilitary force to the club to occupy the building
and throw out the people gathered in the building. One teacher put himself on
fire as an action of protest. The fire was immediately extinguished but
instead of taking him to the hospital, the teacher was imprisoned on
the charges of resistance against the police and slandering the authorities.
The SKT (Siberian Confederation of Labour) asks for international
support in the direct actions for the defense of their members involved
in this conflict. One form of direct action is an international campaign
sending letters of protest and support for the staff at the Youth club ⌠Fregat■
to the mayor of the city of Tomsk. Please use the following address when sending these letters:
Mayor Alexander S. Makarov
Prospekt Lenina 73
634050 Tomsk
Russia
fax +7-3822-526 860
e-mail:  mail@admin.tomsk.ru

You can use the letter attached. We also ask you to send letters of
support to the staff at ⌠Fregat■ (e-mail address:  fregat@syndikalist.ru)
and at the same time telling them that you send your letter of protest
to the mayor. We hope that our international solidarity campaign will
seriously disturb the local authorities and prevent them from further actions.
Vasilij Starostin General Secretary SKT

To the Mayor of the city of Tomsk
Alexander Sergeevich Makarov

Mr. Mayor,

Our organization has received troubling information about the Youth Club Fregat.
We are deeply disturbed by what has happened to the club and its staff, which is
the reason why we now turn to you personally.

We are alarmed by the fact that the local city council decided to reorganize
the club and turn it into a commercial enterprise, a decision which does not
show any consideration for the best of the children and young people concerned
or the pedagogical staff of the club, who were put out of work in the process.
The staff objected to this decision with a hunger strike as the only measure
of protest but instead of starting honest negotiations, a private armed force
was send to the club to take over the building and to throw out the people on
hunger strike gathered on the premises. In the course of this illegal action,
one of the teachers put fire to himself. Luckily he did not suffer any damage to his life.
We hold you, Mr. Mayor, responsible for the above described situation that is
disrupting the civil rights of the workers at the club. We also want to remind you that,
according to international law, conflicts in working places cannot by subject
to forceful implementations of any decision by administrative governmental authorities.
This is against the conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO),
signed and acknowledged by the Russian Federation.

Mr. Mayor, we ask you to act in order to guarantee the lawfulness of decisions
and action in your city!

We on our part will, as an act of solidarity with the staff at the club,
spread everything we know about what is happening in the city of Tomsk
among international organizations and trade unions as well as in the media, within Russia and outside.