About 2,000 workers demonstrated August 6 outside the AvtoVAZ auto company in Tolyatti, Russia. They were protesting a massive cut in work hours and possible layoff of one-fourth of the workforce.

AvtoVAZ is majority-owned by Russian Technologies, a government corporation. In 2008 French auto giant Renault bought a 25 percent stake in the company, which employs more than 100,000 people to make Lada cars.

“We need more workers’ control over the factory and the workers’ right to veto management decisions,” Pyotr Zolotaryov, leader of the factory’s independent trade union, said at the rally, according to Agence France-Presse.

Workers carried signs saying “Give managers a worker’s salary!” “Nationalize!” and “Give AvtoVAZ real help.”

The factory temporarily shut down operations August 3. When production starts back up in September the shifts will be cut to 20 hours a week. The company denied that it was planning layoffs.

Sales of new cars in Russia fell 49 percent in the first half of 2009. The Russian government gave the company a $797 million interest-free loan this year, roughly equal to what the company claims it lost in 2008.

—SETH GALINSKY