A source in Nampo told Daily NK recently that the city “called on factories and enterprises to take charge of collecting agricultural supplies farmers will need, with each worker unconditionally collecting 500 kilograms of compost a week until the Ninth Party Congress.”
According to the source, the Taean Friendship Glass Factory has been on alert since the task was issued. This is because while compost collection is an annual task, the pressure has intensified this year.
Taean Friendship Glass Factory has secured raw materials for compost since last autumn at the order of the elementary party committee. Since January, party cell, General Federation of Trade Unions of Korea and Socialist Patriotic Youth League organizations have continuously produced compost. Workers thought they were practically done with the task, but their burden is growing with another task on the way.
“At each workplace and in each work team, laborers had already exceeded the state’s compost quota, but now they are under intense pressure as they must produce 500 kilograms of compost per person a week,” the source said. “The workers complain that nobody can perform that many tasks.”
Pay bribes or 200,000 won for certificates
Workers must submit written proof to their factories of the amount of compost they delivered to farms. They must also provide straw rope, plastic film, shovels, hoes, pickaxes, sickles and other supplies and implements farmers need.
Realistically, carrying out all of these tasks is difficult, but if they fail, they must take personal responsibility — and with the Ninth Party Congress around the corner, failure could become a political issue. So workers complain that they feel even more pressure.
“If you can’t produce 500 kilograms of compost or gather agricultural supplies, you have to bribe farms for certificates or pay 200,000 North Korean won (roughly $28) in cash to the factory,” the source said. “You have no choice but to handle the tasks this way if you have neither the time nor the circumstances to carry them out.”
Workers express frustration about this, complaining that the authorities “are really just robbing them in the name of providing compost and agricultural supplies,” that workers “must help farmers prepare every year, but this doesn’t result in timely rations, with workers being strangled instead,” and that they must “assume the burden of collecting compost and agricultural supplies on top of factory production when they were having a tough time even feeding their families.”
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: dailynk.com
