Kaunas workers call off hunger strike

KAUNAS (BNS) - After more than two weeks, the three workers of the bankrupt rubber footwear manufacturing company Inkaras,cancelled their hunger strike on March 24. The trio was protesting nonpayment of the employee's wages.

The Kaunas region administration took out a loan of 275,000 litas ($68,750) from the Agricultural Bank as they feared for the lives of those on hunger strike and dolled it out to the Inkaras workers, including the three who were on a hunger strike for 19 days, surviving only on water.

The chairman of the company's local trade union branch, Kazimieras Ruzevskis, said that two of the hunger strikers were taken to the Kaunas Clinical Hospital intensive care unit. The third will get medical care at home. All the three had suffered significant loss of weight.

Workers at some sections of the Inkaras concern have not been paid for more than a year, and the company's debt in unpaid wages amounts to 1.3 million litas.

The enterprise is completely out of operation. More than a decade ago under the Soviet regime, Inkaras footwear manufacturers was a large company. Privatized several years ago, it has gone bankrupt recently.