In December last year, an article was published on the state of affairs in the design bureau of chemical automatics, abbreviated as KBKhA. This enterprise is one of the pillars of our space industry, since it develops and manufactures rocket engines for the Proton-K, Proton-M, Soyuz-2-1b, and Angara launch vehicles. And also for a number of ICBMs still in service with the RF Armed Forces.
KBKHA: won't you have to regret the Proton again?
In that article, I expressed, let's say, concern about what is happening at the enterprise. He wrote about the personnel that our space industry can lose.
Six months passed, and I again decided to inquire about the state of affairs. Quite a normal desire. Today this concern has turned into confidence. And that's why.
From June 1, reduction is planned in KBKhA. Promised back in December. 15-20%. The figure is huge on an enterprise scale. As I said before, it is not "effective managers" who are fired from management, but workers from the shops and the test complex.
And it is not the elderly who are fired. Young people are being fired. As one of those who fell under this layoff told me, the head of the shop came up to him and straightforwardly suggested: “Let’s fire you on layoffs. You are young, you’ll find a job. surnames, of course, I omit) I will fire them. They have a year and a half left before retirement …"
And the young ones leave. And they leave, by the way, with pleasure. Because in March and April people received a "bare salary", that is, 14-17 thousand rubles. Everyone forgot about bonuses, allowances and other things. There are only charges for processing and after-hours. But with processing, of course, there is a struggle at the plant, and after-hours (tests) are exclusively for the landfill.
One of my December interlocutors is already working in another company in the city. And with him we will talk in great detail about the plant a little later. The second mortgage (more precisely, the impossibility of its payment) was brought as much to the Vostochny cosmodrome. There, a hydraulic engineer with experience in the space industry is worth 55 thousand.
But what do the so-called "effective managers" offer to workers?
They offer a very interesting thing.
Firing to lay off people, of course, frees up some sums of money. Where will they go? Partially to raise salaries. And partly - for bonuses and overtime payments.
It is clear that if three out of 5 people are fired, the work will not decrease. And you still have to do it. Accordingly, here is the aforementioned overtime. That is, a person will work more, and at best receive as much as in 2014, which is now remembered in KBKhA with reverence.
Okay, if the company produced irons or sausages. But we are talking about rocket engines for spaceships. How, even if experienced, but already aged personnel, working constantly above the norm, will be able to ensure the proper quality?
Experience and skill are a very important detail. But not in the case when a 55-58 year old man plows like a young man. One and a half shifts and on weekends. And he will plow, will not go anywhere. The family has not been canceled. And retirement, by the way, too.
A sort of serfdom from "effective managers". Apparently, Mr. Kamyshev decided to organize the case as in his former CenterTelecom. It may have had a positive effect there, but telephone communications and rocket engines are still different things. It seems to me.
So I will not be very surprised in six months by the next news of the catastrophe during the takeoff of the next launch vehicle. There are all the prerequisites for this. And this, to put it mildly, is not encouraging.
But let's look to the future. For five years. After all, sooner or later, the time will come for pensioners to leave. And, whatever one may say, they will not be able to work in this mode. They will go away. Will make it to retirement and leave.
The question arises: who is next?
Who will assemble the engines next? Graduates of our Polytechnic University? Quite, by the way, a respected university, even on a national scale. Supplier of personnel for many "closed" factories. Not funny. It is unlikely that the current figure of 15-17 thousand rubles will interest anyone. As well as the prospect of working on weekends and nights for a premium of 3-5 thousand.
I do not know what the gentlemen "effective managers" are planning at KBKhA. Maybe hire migrant workers, maybe something else. In any case, I have no desire to listen to what they could tell me in response to these questions. For these will be exclusively the words of people who are absolutely incompetent in the field of the space industry.
And people leave. And it is difficult to say whether they will decide to return back in a few years. Because my interlocutors were invited to a large military enterprise with a decent job and a good salary. And so it was until 2015. And they leave an incomprehensible office, where they spit on everything. Including what will happen tomorrow.
Mr. Rogozin, why aren't you in Voronezh yet?
By the way, I draw the attention of readers to the fact that in the USA, where every fourth engine from the KBKhA goes today, they are already shouting, especially the military, about the need to produce their engines and faster. Is it because they are so excited that they are aware of what is happening?
It is very difficult for me to properly assess what is happening. But the fact is that the leading manufacturer of rocket engines today, or rather, from June 1, is losing its personnel. Lost the future. And with it our space industry is also deprived of its future.
If you do not change the situation, then … I would not want to become a prophet.
Perhaps my opinion, made up of conversations with the departed KBKhA employees, is somewhat unprofessional and biased. So I arranged a broader interview with several of them. Let them tell everyone how they came to the plant, how and why they left.
Continuation will follow in the very near future.
