Ukraine: Kyiv Street Cleaners Get a Raise

Kyiv street cleaners – all 6,000 of them – will be getting $400 a month from now on. This raise, city administration officials hope, will help hire 3,500 more people needed to keep the Ukrainian capital (pop. nearly 3,000,000) tidy.

Judging by a discussion (RUS, UKR) that erupted after the Ukrainian news website Korrespondent.net ran an item on this salary increase initiative, the city's laborer corps might soon become overstaffed – and many of the new recruits are likely to be overqualified for the humble yet arduous work of a street cleaner:

Levyi_Tip: Ha, I bet this is going to make many people jealous… On to a different occupation, gentlemen!

[…]

KPSS: A country of idiots – a street cleaner is making three times more than a doctor!

[…]

Evgen1: And a candidate of medical sciences makes 1,400 [hryvnias, $280 a month] )) Becomes clear at once who rules the country.

[…]

Slv: […] An obstetrician-gynecologist, college-educated, with legal responsibility and 30 years of experience, smokes aside nervously with his 800 hryvnias [$160 a month].

alkaidenko: Don't worry for a doctor, if he's not a complete fool, he'll make as much as he needs. But the streets have to be clean or else we'll all die and no doctor will help us.

[…]

Odess: [To Slv]: Where have you seen that obstetrician-gynecologist with 800 hryvnias [a month] – in a highest security male prison? My friend makes 5,000 hryvnias ($1,000 a month) in this profession.

Slv: [To Odess] In what clinic does she work??? In a private one??? In state ones they've never paid this kind of money (5,000 hryvnias).

[…]

Shusha: Damn! It's what a lecturer gets outside of Kyiv!!! All of us should become street cleaners! Who needs crazy lecturers like myself??? […]

nnn: Damn… I'm an electronics engineer, we're working on thingies for ships and making less in Kherson. :)

[…]

qwerty: Wow! Our computer guy makes 1,250 [hryvnias, $250 a month], and the chief bookkeeper 1,300 [hryvnias, $260 a month]! I want to be a street cleaner!

[…]

007: Too bad you've written about this – all of Ternopil will now head to Kyiv…

Xrenase: Poor me, I work six days a week here for 2,000 [hryvnias, $400 a month], and this is intellectual work, and he, a poor guy, can decide what to clean and what not to, and makes as much money. Time to leave, until it's too late.

[…]

Andrey: Kyiv city administration is responsible for street cleaners. And the Cabinet of Ministers is responsible for doctors. Questions on doctors have to be addressed to [Mykola Azarov, first vice prime minister, minister of finance of Ukraine] and [prime minister Victor Yanukovych].

Lunacharskiy: People, are you really jealous of street cleaners? If you are making less, then it's time to look for something with a better salary! Only there are people out there, who've found a job and sit on it until retirement, doing nothing, envying the more successful ones, even the street cleaners, not willing to change something for the better themselves, lazy…

barius: You folks who make as much or less – change a job or demand more money. Our country's main problem is that people do not know how to value their own labor and are satisfied with little.

Kiev: This is all very good, of course. But it would've been better if they were giving raises proportionally to everyone. I, for example, am very concerned about teachers’ salaries: they are forced to give lower grades to children (!!) in order to tutor them for money. Not all are like this, but there're enough… A teacher has to think about the children and not of the ways to make money… And this is the responsibility of our state.

[…]

Demjan: I graduated from the Kyiv Polytechnics. Electrical mechanics engineer, my salary is 800 hryvnias [$160 a month], it's not funny. The only way out is to escape to the west.

[…]

SS: As strange as it sounds, but I also graduated from [the Kyiv Polytechnics] (an electrical mechanic as well). My official salary is 5,000 hryvnias [$1,000 a month] + awards + additional earnings + all kinds of bonuses. It's not enough to graduate from the Polytechnics – you've gotta be an engineer as well, and not some [dishwasher].

[…]

50 bln: Fifty billion dollars of investments are gone to Africa – the money that could've been in Ukraine. And now do a calculation on how many street cleaners, lecturers […] and other professions would've gotten preferences, as well as how many Ukrainian officials would've taken part in drowning this project. But in Ukraine, they'll continue to read [Yulia Tymoshenko]'s articles, discuss honorary citizenship for [Verka Serdyuchka] and seek favors with [Gazprom].

[…]

4 comments

  • Evance Ng'ingo

    iam evance a 26 aged journalists i would like you to be publishing other storiews from the developing nations in Africa like Tanzania Kenya and Uganda.

  • Chris

    I am from South Africa. I visited Ukraine last year. The average salary in South Africa ranges from R132,224 to R289,695 based on different profesions and years of experience. So the average salary in South Africa for the middle class ranges from USD18,000 to USD40,000 per year.

    http://www.payscale.com/research/ZA/Country=South_Africa/Salary

    The prices of goods like food in the super markets and prices of motor cars in Ukraine are similar to the prices in South Africa. It also costs about the same to eat out in a restuarant in Kiev than it does in South Africa.If I look at the salaries stated for Ukraine in the other posts, then I can not understand how the people of Ukraine can afford to live in Ukraine. Could somebody please explain this to me.

  • […] reported last week that Kyiv street cleaners would be receiving $400 a month beginning this June, a number of readers confessed that they were earning less working as college lecturers or medical doctors. How some skilled […]

  • Li

    if the average salary as said on the comments is about 200 u.s.dollars in Ukraine,I think it’s really hard to make bread at the EastEuropean living cost.

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