Since going private, ZiL, the huge Moscow plant, saw its production of trucks slump from 150,000 to 13,000 a year, with almost 40 percent of the workforce laid off. In April 1996, the remaining workers petitioned the Russian government to take back control of ZiL. In the past, ZiL workers and their relatives “had unshakeably safe jobs” at the factory. They lived in apartments and attended schools provided by ZiL. As babies they spent their days at the ZiL day care center, and when ill they were attended to by ZiL doctors. “I was raised in a country that cared about its workers,” said one
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