Unpaid factory worker stops eating

VILNIUS (BNS) - A worker from the Taurages Tauras furniture manufacturing company has started a hunger strike outside the president's office in Vilnius as a last-ditch effort to attract the government's attention and to make the company pay him his wages.

Stasys Andrikenas, 47, claims the company has not paid him his wages, 7,000 ($1,750) for the last 12 months. He said he would continue the hunger strike in the open air outside the president's office until the end of his unpaid leave on Sept.1.

He threatened to "resort to other actions" including starvation if he does not get paid when he returns back to work.

The president's office said the Vilnius municipality had not sanctioned Andrikenas hunger strike outside the president's office, therefore he could continue this action for only 24 hours, and otherwise law enforcement bodies would have to tackle the problem.

Representatives from the president's office talked to the hunger striker on Aug. 21 suggesting that he should take the company to court for failing to pay him his wages.

However, Andrikenas said that he personally would not sue the company because, in his opinion, it was the "authorities" that should take action to retrieve his unpaid wages.