‘Everything is wrong’ at state Ukrzaliznytsia rail monopoly

State railway monopoly Ukrzaliznytsia, or UZ, employs 250,000 people who were recently threatening to strike for better working conditions and higher wages. The labor stoppage would have paralyzed movement along 22,000 kilometers of rail track. While that crisis was averted, UZ is in big trouble. It has a bloated but poorly paid workforce, making an average of $410 a month.

Experts say UZ’s tariff structure makes no financial sense and favors several oligarchs, especially Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest billionaire. His heavy cargo accounts for a third of UZ’s daily load and much of those shipments are subsidized — transported by the railway way at below-cost rates, according to reliable calculations.