The trade union at the Ford Vsevolzhsk company rejected the administration’s proposals and intends to continue the protest action, a company official told Prime-Tass.
The union's key demand is a 30-percent payrise. The administration has informed the workers that the upcoming increase in wages will compensate for the inflation by a large margin.
In practice, the commitment implies that given the inflation target of 11 percent until the end of 2007, an average wage at the company may increase from 21,500 to 23,865 roubles in 2008.
Earlier Union leader Alexei Etmanov said some of the proposals brought forward by the company administration were positive.
The Ford Vsevolzhsk union began a strike on November 20. On November 28, the company resumed one-shift manufacturing. All the produced cars conform to Ford's global quality standards, company officials said.
Experts said the company fell short of producing 2,500 Ford Focus cars as a result of the protest action.
The output during three days /November 28-30/ did not exceed 200, whereas company plan envisions the production of 14 vehicles per hour.
The number of strikers increased to 600, after some 300 workers joined on Friday.
Last Thursday, the Ford Vsevolzhsk union claimed it had information on the VIN (engine code) number of the cars assembled by skeleton shifts during the protest action.
Union activists did not elaborate on how they had obtained the data, which might become crucial in upcoming car sales. They said they might use this information.
The fact of access to VIN data was announced by Union Committee member Vladimir Lesik: "VIN numbers of all the Ford Focus cars, manufactured by the "joint shift" on November 28 and 29, will be placed on the Internet."
St. Petersburg car dealers confirmed that consumers will "certainly take an interest in the list of VIN numbers." "Some have already phoned, saying they did not wish to buy cars assembled during the strike," personnel of one of the city car sellers told Tass.
The company administration insists that the clients' apprehensions are groundless, as all the cars have been tested for quality.
The plant of the Ford company, located in the town of Vsevolzhsk, produces up to 75,000 Ford Focus cars a year.
It is the third strike by the working collective this year. The previous actions on February 14 and November 7 did not last more than a day. Each idle day costs the company four to six million dollars.