Russian power workers, metro builders mount protests

September 11, 1996
Issue 

By Renfrey Clarke

MOSCOW — Workers at one of Russia's largest atomic power plants won another round late in August in a long-running battle to force management and the government to keep wage payments up to date. Protest action at the Leningrad Atomic Power Station (LAES) on August 27 brought a swift response when the Atomic Energy Ministry provided the plant with credits to cover May wages.

The power workers' struggle was typical of a broad range of collective actions that were mounted by workers during July and August — holiday months that in past years have generally been marked by a lull in labour protests.

The most powerful of the recent actions were mass strikes by coal miners in the far east and southern Russia. Millions of other workers, however, also found themselves without pay for months on end. Many of these workers decided that militant protest, including work stoppages, was the only course available if they and their families were not to starve.

The huge Chernobyl-type LAES is located in Leningrad province, upwind of St Petersburg. Wages at the plant have been chronically in arrears. Not only have promised subsidies from the ministry been slow in arriving, but workers also claim that the plant's finances have been seriously mismanaged. In July the workers forced the chief director to resign; at that point, wages had not been paid since March.

Rejecting protest actions that might compromise safety, the LAES workers have generally used the tactic of mass sit-ins, refusing to leave the buildings after their shifts have finished. According to the Moscow daily Segodnya on August 30, the current struggles at the plant have not been halted, but merely suspended; they will be renewed if the government fails to sign over funds for June wages.

According to a Reuters report on August 25, financial pressures may soon force the closure of some of Russia's nine nuclear power plants. The government's ambitious plans to expand nuclear power generation are also under threat. Reuters stated that the state nuclear power firm Rosenergatom is owed some 5 trillion roubles (US$940 million) by Russia's united power grid, and is unable to finance repair work.

Workers for Metrostroi, the organisation that handles construction work on Moscow's underground commuter rail system, also conducted struggles during the summer months. Lack of funding during the past few years has almost halted the much-needed expansion of the Moscow metro.

On July 18, about 200 Metrostroi workers demonstrated outside the main federal government office building in Moscow. The demonstrators called on the government to alleviate the dire financial situation of Metrostroi, describing the organisation as being "on the threshold of ruin".

Like the miners and atomic power workers, Metrostroi employees have also had to endure months-long delays in receiving their wages. On August 19 the metro builders downed tools, resuming work after two days when the authorities signed over 70 billion roubles (about US$13 million) for the payment of May wages. Further money for June was promised within 10 days.

The Metrostroi strike committee is to discuss the question of renewing the stoppage at a meeting on September 3. By that time, the issue of whether to stop construction work on Moscow's main people-mover may well have passed out of the workers' hands; supplies of indispensable materials are likely to have run out.

Late in August, the government barely averted an indefinite stoppage of civil aviation workers called originally for August 27. This stoppage would have posed an especially direct challenge to the ability of the state to discipline workers, since many aviation employees are banned by law from striking. In past years, the Yeltsin administration has made ruthless use of court prosecutions against striking air traffic controllers.

The latest struggle by aviation workers was preceded by the signing in July of a wage agreement between the federal authorities and the Federation of Trade Unions of Aviation Workers of Russia. But five smaller unions, covering specific groups within the aviation work force, refused to endorse the deal. These organisations were demanding increased skills margins for their highly qualified members.

A major clash was averted on August 24, when representatives of the Federal Aviation Service and the five unions signed an agreement setting out a new system of wage relativities. However, there is little reason to think that labour tensions in the aviation industry will now abate. Large numbers of enterprises are insolvent; many airlines, for example, fail to pay landing and air traffic control charges. In these circumstances, workers face having to fight to ensure any wage payments at all.

In many cases, the government has met protests over wage delays by conceding the sums needed to reduce the lag to one or two months. Workers, especially those whose position gives them little bargaining power, can often be persuaded to cancel their actions when money begins to be paid out. Once the immediate threat of labour militancy subsides, promises can be forgotten and the debts allowed again to build up.

The speed with which the government reacts to labour protests varies from area to area of the economy. State officials are much more attentive to the demands of coal miners or power workers, able to cripple large sectors of production, than to the plaints of teachers or health workers. As a result, some of the longest and hardest fought strikes in recent years have been mounted by the workers — mainly women — in the ill-used "budget area" sectors of health and education.

Late in August the news agency Interfax quoted Russia's health minister as warning that doctors were likely to stage massive strikes during the autumn over wage arrears. Itar-Tass on August 26 reported that more than 1000 doctors in Kyzyl, the capital of the Tuva Republic on the Mongolian border, had begun an indefinite strike demanding three months' unpaid wages and higher state support for health care.

Actions such as those of the Kyzyl doctors obviously have much more chance of succeeding if they are integrated into broad plans of struggle involving millions of workers whose wages are overdue. Developing such strategies is the task above all of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR), the peak union body that covers more than 50 million of the country's workers.

In the past, the FNPR's record of planning and leading broad campaigns has not been distinguished. But there are signs that the federation's leaders may at last be recognising their responsibilities.

According to Interfax, the FNPR is now working out a plan of action around wage payments. Under this plan, to be unveiled on October 1, strikes will not be confined to individual industries, but may be coordinated to cover several industries simultaneously in order to achieve maximum impact.

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