Operation reorganization

Last week an ambulance car arrived to the Mariupol City Council nearly every day since the teachers of the Mariupol Specialized Music School, in particular, its head Larysa Hakh, teacher Tetiana Malaieva, civil rights advocate Halyna Holubova and Father Volodymyr, a representative of the St. Pantaleon religious community at the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate started the third week of their hunger strike.

Whereas the citizens caring about their health make the multichannel 103 phones red-hot, the officials in their offices pretend not to see the tents covered with slogans and posters addressing the local Authorities and public to stop the liquidation of the music school and pay four-month arrears in teachers’ salary that totals 150,000 hryvnias.

The question arises: how do these actions of the local Authorities correlate with the state program “The Gifted Children”? The answer is obvious: the high cost of the real estate in the city center.

We remind our readers that the school was opened at the musical college back in 1992 with the purpose to prepare gifted children to the professional activity and six years later it received the status of a legal entity. Within this time the school managed to start the international festival Accord, contest Young Pianists’ ABC and workshops for teachers. Today 75 talented children study there, particularly, the winners and laureates of the Ukrainian and international contests and festivals Danylo Haievsky, Marianna Tykych, Valeria Hubenko and others.

However, despite all its merits, the school was pitched out of the musical college premises. And then they decided, so to say, to “reorganize” it and turn the educational institution that is actually a high standard school (just like the schools of the Olympic reserve) into a “department of the higher level at the art school.” This decision was made at the council city session in June 2007; according to the music school’s administration, it was done “without taking into account the interests of the city.” Moreover, the teachers are outraged by the fact that: “The Authorities, namely, deputy mayor Tetiana Lomakina, thoroughly hid from us that this question would be examined during that session. In September 2007, the music school was moved to the art school premises yet its legal address was not changed and Kostiantyn Tkalenko, head of the department of culture, never signed the corresponding order. They allocated three classrooms and scoffingly recommended us to run classes in the corridors of the art school. As a result, the teachers have to give private lessons till 10 p.m. mainly working at home or in the premises of the Pryazovsky State Technical University. The department of culture didn’t fail to use the fact that the teachers do not have their working places and started checking their working hours.

“On February 18, 2011, they chose the new termination commission with no representatives of our school, which violates the law,” Larysa Hakh, the music, schools head, says. “We were notified only a month later. On the same day the school workers did not receive their salaries for the first time. Then I started receiving letters from the head of the department of culture Tkalenko and deputy mayor Lomakina with threats and demands to urgently give them our seal, title documents and work record cards in exchange for the salary. Besides, the treasury was ordered not to receive from the music school any financial commitments or remittance orders for the transfer of the school workers’ salary.”

It is amazing that the treasury obeyed and… ignored the fact that the documents did not have the personal director’s and accountant’s signatures required by the law but the autographs of the city council officials. Moreover, in order to reissue the cards the city council service supervising the department of culture used the school’s “seal” that was not bought for the school’s money and was not listed in its balance sheet, in fact, its substitute. “This way the current administration of the music school, namely its director, accountant and head of the curriculum department was unreasonably deprived of its signature, its seal and, practically all rights and powers. It is a rude raider seizure!” the teachers conclude.

We still would like to understand: if the school is being reorganized, according to the head of the department of culture, how such actions should be interpreted? Why is the commission that is supposedly reorganizing the school called the liquidation commission, “the commission of termination of a legal entity”? If it is reorganization, its procedure is provided by the law. According to the Commercial Code, the liquidation commission has only three functions: it identifies both debtors and creditors and decides whether the debt has to be paid or not. It also has the right to represent the company in the court but only after all its employees are fired. By the way, the termination commission must not check schools’ activity since there is a whole range of other corresponding state structures: the Audit Office and City Finance Department that did not find a single infringement at the music school.

The music school’s labor union turned to the city prosecutor’s office and it appealed against the city council decision made in June since it had lots of violations of the law. The further progress of events was predictable. The city council supposedly satisfied the prosecutor’s protest yet partially – by rewording one of the points. However, despite that the new wording did not bring any changes to the previous decision it revealed the real purpose of the reorganization – to liquidate the school. They added to the words “to keep the staff fully” the words “except for the persons with whom the employment should be terminated in accordance with the Labor Code.” Probably, “those persons” have been already chosen.

“Their purpose is clear,” Tetiana Malaieva, the music school teacher, says. “They want to carpet a couple of rebellious managers and fire them. While they will be reinstated through the court they will destroy the school and finally grab the art school premises that are a tasty morsel. If they get rid of the music school the question of the premises will be a piece of cake for them.”

The local Authorities have their own explanation why the school has to be liquidated. According to abovementioned Lomakina, the school does not have the corresponding material and technical basis. However, these excuses are farfetched. Who except the local Authorities should be responsible for the fact that a municipal school was not provided with the premises and equipment? And how can one explain the fact that the school will receive everything it needs as soon as it is modified into a department?

So, after the numerous vain attempts to uphold their school the teachers did not find any other way out but going on an indefinite hunger strike near the municipal council. The prior of the St. Pantaleon religious community at the Kyiv Patriarchate of the UOC, Father Volodymyr (who is currently in the hospital) joined the teachers at once. The whole of the Mariupol culture elite, including director of the Drama Theater Kostiantyn Dobrunov, is defending the school; the public figures and the Kharkiv State Kotliarevsky University of Arts joined, too. The world-known pianist, professor of the University of Pittsburg (the US), Ihor Kraievsky who was born in Mariupol and finished his first music school there has not kept out as well.

“I was very sorry to hear about the destiny of the specialized music school. I know about it firsthand and I make much of its activity: its level, quality, results and even its graduates. I have been a member of the Azov Spring contest jury. I think that the school is being unreasonably suppressed. I believe that such a school is just necessary… The standards of the professional education in Mariupol are very low. I think a lot of your problems will be resolved if people start playing music. People cannot listen to good music. They do not understand long phrases and all the rest. Now the world is troubled by the syndrome of short attention. They treat it with the music. My companion, a French woman I play the piano duets with, told me that in one of the French villages the peasants had modified a stable into a concert hall.”