RUSSIA: Free trade unions in an unfree country

August 30, 2000
Issue 

OLEG SHEIN from the Russian trade union confederation Zaschita (Workers' Defense) toured Europe in July at the invitation of International Solidarity with Workers in Russia. He was interviewed on July 14 by GREG DROPKIN for LabourNet (<http://www.labournet.net>) in Liverpool, England. Translation is by Steve Kerr.

Question: Could you say a bit about the working and living conditions for workers in Russia?

Monthly pay for workers in Russia right now is between $30 and $50, around 1000 roubles a month. The major delays in workers receiving their wages stopped or slowed down after the financial crisis in August 1998 and the devaluation of the rouble, however the delays have started to increase again.

It is possible to live on these wages, but it is not easy. There are very many documented cases of people actually eating food that's meant for animals. A lot of people fish in polluted streams and die early from diseases caused by these things.

During the Soviet period lots of people were able to acquire small cottages with small plots of land, and they used these very efficiently to grow and preserve their own vegetables.

Question: What about health and safety?

There are dangerous work conditions. The incidence of accidents has declined in statistical terms, however, that's only because firms are being liquidated and workplaces closing. We've seen lots of coalmining accidents recently and of course there are well known effects of coal on human health.

Question: Has this changed appreciably since the collapse of the Soviet Union, or has the situation for workers been bad for some time?

The working and living conditions became much worse after 1991. But there is a bright spot in this, in the last three or four years, class war has definitely increased with the birth of new social movements that are trying to fight for better working conditions and workers' rights.

Question: Could you outline the types of unions in the former Soviet Union and in your region?

The largest, in fact the only trade union in Russia was the Central Union of Trade Unions. All workers were covered by that trade union. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, this union became the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR), and this pattern of development was repeated in all the other Soviet republics.

The number of FNPR members has declined by two and a half times. However, this so-called union takes into its membership not only workers, but the directors who oppress them. And, of course, the managers take direct responsibility for many so-called union activities. It's just a joke; this is really no trade union.

There are free trade unions, and another type are those founded in conjunction with the [US trade union federation] AFL-CIO. These unions have received real support from workers, because they've actually tried to protest, to some extent, the decrease in workers' living conditions.

However, we have to consider that their politics are neo-liberal politics and these unions formed channels through which money was filtered to [former president] Boris Yeltsin for his election campaigns and ideologically supported him.

Question: Would the miners' unions in about 1990 be an example?

In the coal industry right now there are three trade unions. There's the Russian Coal Miners' Union, which comes from the old FNPR or Soviet period. It has about 45% of workers under its control. There's a section of that union which is in conflict with the leadership of the FNPR. This union works closely with the governor of the coalmining region, the Kuzbass, who is Aman Tulyaev.

There's another trade union, a free trade union which represents 15-20% of workers there. That was the trade union which led people on strike in 1990 and organised the tent city in Moscow in 1997.

This trade union receives money from the International Monetary Fund; it's neo-liberal. Right now it's spending a lot of energy in the Kuzbass with miners. This trade union has taken Yeltsin's side and criticizes the Communist Party of the Soviet Union rather strongly. Its attitude is that members aren't really capable of directing their own trade union activity and require lots of legal and professional help.

My trade union, Zaschita, or Defense of Labour, has a lot of members in coalmining, especially in the Petchorsk and the Kuzbass, in the Kemerovo region. We have about 2-3% of coalminers in our union right now. However, in European Russia, our share of the coalminers is about 30%. Union membership has doubled.

Zaschita is the only left trade union in Russia. This left tradition has been created by the combining of a number of trade unions into a front. It covers workers from almost every major industry, public servants, miners, doctors, teachers, workers in the atomic industry and all kinds of others.

Question: Are the dockers involved in Zaschita?

We have comradely relations with the dockers, who have their own trade union, but they've not yet joined Zaschita. The Dockers' Union is one of the most highly organised in Russia. It was formed during Soviet times and has one of the best collective agreements in Russia.

It has about 13,000 members in about 12 ports. The trade union has a very good education program and runs a Workers' University in St Petersburg, at which dockers and other workers take computer courses, legal courses, etc.

They are right now engaged in a battle to raise their pay from 12-14,000 roubles to 20-23,000 roubles.

Question: You have been very involved in the fight against the labour code [proposed legislation which will severely undermine workers' rights]. What has happened since the mass strikes in May?

I think the May 17 mass action [against the new labour code] was the biggest thing that's happened to the Russian working class in a long time. The actions scared the ruling class quite a bit. They were supposed to look at the Labour Code in parliament over the summer and that date has been pushed back to December.

But what is more important is the fact that this mass action created a network of activists that we are now building upon to do concrete solidarity in the future.

We have six months' breathing space and we have to value these six months, especially when we know that during the winter social conditions will be much more difficult and this will render the government even more vulnerable on these questions.

Question: What is the attitude of the FNPR to [President Vladimir] Putin's labour code?

Putin has been using the FNPR to divert the attention of the labour movement and those workers under the FNPR's control. He offered the FNPR a seat at the table, to negotiate conditions which would protect their workers from the worst aspects of the labour code. Of course, he is lying to them.

The FNPR officially did not participate in the May 17 actions. Not only that, it sent its membership letters advising them not to participate in the activities we were organising. Nevertheless, many, many members did not listen to their leadership and participated in the protest.

The FNPR has set up its own organisation to propose its own version of a labour code. It does contain some compromises, but in the end it's a proposed labour code which would eliminate many workers' rights. And it's a political tool which indicates that the FNPR is prepared to work with the government to sell out the labour movement in Russia.

Question: So do you think workers in the FNPR may decide to leave?

Yes, absolutely. The FNPR has been losing members since the fall of the Soviet Union, and will continue to do so.

Question: Is your campaign to defend the existing labour code or are you also proposing a reform of the code?

We are demanding that the guarantees and rights in the old Soviet labour code be preserved and also asking for more. One of the former deputies, who was educated in part in the Workers' University, has created some supplements to the existing labour code which further ensure workers' rights. Right now, I represent that project in the State Duma.

One major fault of the old Soviet labour code is that there was no way to secure levels of pay, especially during inflation. For example, there's no concept of indexation of pay against inflation, and we're proposing that we take that on.

We are also demanding that workers be allowed to take part in the administration of their factories and receive part of the profits of those operations.

[Abridged. For more detail, see Steve Myers' interview with Oleg Shein and Lisa Taylor's report on the May demonstrations against the proposed new labour code at <http://members.aol.com/ISWoR/english/index.html>.]

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