Shih-Hao Kang a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology
Download 2.45 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- 3.2.1 Interregional Trade Union ‘Zheleznodorozhnik’ (MPS ‘Zheleznodorozhnik’ )
- 3.2.2 The Trade Union of the Electricians of October Railway
- 3.2.3 The Free Trade Union of Refrigerator Workers on Refrigerator Depot ‘Predportovaya’
3.2 Non-RPLBZh free trade unionsApart from the RPLBZh and the ROSPROFZhEL, there is a number of other trade unions, which mostly formed based on their specific workplaces (though under the name of profession identity). Most of them also define themselves as free trade unions, and constantly accuse ROSPROFZhEL of being a ‘pocket trade union (of the employer)’. The leaders of these free trade unions did not choose to join RPLBZh. Generally, these are even more marginal than RPLBZh, but could be quite strong on the basis of their authority in certain depots or stations. A common characteristic of these scattered, marginal trade unions is that their leaders were all suppressed by their administrations. Such a situation pushes them to embrace sympathy with each other, and that generates an incentive for these organisations to form a loose confederation. The description of these marginal union organisations is valuable for understanding the role of workplace interests for railway workers and the potential obstacles facing coordinating different occupations. 3.2.1 Interregional Trade Union ‘Zheleznodorozhnik’ (MPS ‘Zheleznodorozhnik’ )Formally established on June 22 1998, 30 track workers from Baltic Station (PCh-11) and Gatchinskaya Division attended the constitutional conference of their new trade union – Trade Union of Track Facility Workers of October Railway (PSRP OZhD). After the new organisation was formed, its leadership and members immediately faced serious oppression directly from the administration and the ROSPROFZhEL unionists. Their members received threatening calls from their management, and six union activists, including the leaders, were sacked by the administration. The trade union, however, still survived after a series of barriers to union activities. It overcame a fall in its membership from the highest level of 117 down to 19 between January and July 1999. PSRP OZhD also joined and became a member organisation of the Confederation of Free Trade Unions on the October Railway in 1998. Nevertheless, since members and activists had left, corresponding to its new and real status, there was anyway the necessity to restrict the organisation. On October 22 2000, the leadership (some had got their jobs back but the rest had not) of PSRP OZhD initiated a reform of the union and adopted the current name – Interregional Trade Union ‘Zheleznodorozhnik’, shortly named as ‘MPS Zheleznodorozhnik’.84 The organisation declares its current membership as about 250, with nine primary organisations, to which they recruit members not only from track workers, but also from different railway occupations (‘Zheleznodorozhnik’ Za robochee delo No. 6(128), 2003) Nevertheless, neither the trade union nor its union committee has its own facilities such as an office, union information board, telephone and computers. That is due to the continuing discrimination by the administration. The running of union activity relies on either using the personal energy of its highly dedicated leader or through other local labour organisations. The external support, however, was still an expansion of the personal contacts of the leader. According to the documentary material of ‘MPS Zheleznodorozhnik’, the union in 2003 had five active activists in total. As an unusual case, the union has one female activist, a boiler-house operator in the St Petersburg-Vitebsk Division of the October Railway. Like the union activists from RPLBZh, in their daily work the MPS activists have to provide legal consultation for workers, or represent their members in court over working conditions disputes (Mironov 2002). Such functions require a rich experience and specific knowledge. For example, the only female activist mentioned earlier; due to her profession and recent union membership, did not really get involved in organisational work or in the circle of KSP OZhD activity. Two other activists had been deliberately discriminated against by the administration; the depot chief firstly ordered them to transfer their duty to other depots and then delayed receiving them for months. Finally, they were both told that because the depots do not allow workers from other unions, they had lost their jobs. Such odd events somehow exhausted the young activists’ energy. Since most of these active members are quite new to this kind of union daily work, this work can only rely on the union president. The president of ‘MPS Zheleznodorozhnik’, Aleksandr Argunov, one of the most active leaders within the KSP OZhD circle, is also the president of its railway committee and the primary organisation of Gatchinskaya Division. With his Kuzbass background, Argunov had worked as a construction worker, docker, and sinker in coalmines; in 1990, he started to work on the railway track PCh-24. He had worked hard for the trade union movement, as well as for the political movement. The local RPLBZh activists therefore treat him with fair respect for his endless energy on the one hand; but keep a cautious attitude towards to him, on the other hand. According to his opinion, his trade union as well as the KSP OZhD needs to recruit more people to get involved in their work, and he sent his members to be present at almost every seminar and picket. Obviously, the union activity is strongly sustained by Argunov. Compared to his co-activists, Argunov strongly believes in taking direct action; he actively participated, and brought his members, to almost all of the transport-related pickets and KSP OZhD actions. The ‘MPS Zheleznodorozhnik’ conducted its own picket actions, although local unionists and RPLBZh activists had been reluctant to take such actions. Compared to the attitude of its counterparts within KSP OZhD, the union recognised the influence of press propaganda and union seminars, despite its relatively poor resources. Argunov is the very rare respondent in my research who believes that the trade union does need to tell railway workers about how trade unions should recruit members and to consider the general attitude of members towards the union organisation. For that he required local labour activists to learn how to run union seminars. Since 2002, Argunov started to participate in the founding of the Russian Labour Party (RPT), and became the chairperson of the party organisation in the Leningrad Region. The next year he also ran as the party’s candidate in the parliamentary election in the region. Mixed with the union’s relatively short experience and the strong personality and capacity of Argunov in conducting union activities, this organisation has played an active role in the circle of the local union movement. Its relations with RPLBZh, however, have always been difficult. The president, though he expects RPLBZh to be a real and serious trade union, very much dislikes the political orientation of the RPLBZh leadership. That is probably the main reason why Argunov did not want his trade union to fully cooperate with RPLBZh. Instead of joining RPLBZh, he had considered ‘MPS Zheleznodorozhnik’ joining ‘Zashchita truda’, the more left-wing Russian labour union. He soon had left the local labour movement circle and his activism for personal condition in the latest time. 3.2.2 The Trade Union of the Electricians of October RailwayThe Trade Union of the Electricians of October Railway (PSE) was established in 1998, and joined the KSP OZhD immediately. The union officially registered, but was not really recognised by the depot administration. Direct pressure on this organisation meant that the union was constantly stuck in the problem of a struggle for survival. Due to such hardship the membership of PES has always been unstable, the president giving an ambiguous number of about 60 members. The ‘trade union’ had been obviously a workplace-based organisation. Most of its members work at depot VCh-8, including various sorts of mechanics and conductors. The president of the trade union, Petrov, was sacked from his railway job in 1998 and since then he has always been taking temporary jobs. He claimed to have been involved in trade union activity since 1993. Despite that, the president has endlessly helped railway workers who have come to him asking for various kinds of support. The membership of his organisation, however, did not increase correspondingly. As a strategy for the union’s survival, he allows union members to keep dual membership. Except for some loyal active members and himself, most of his members still keep dual membership. The other strategy he has insisted on is to keep the real membership information secret so that the administration cannot threaten their members. The people who decided to join his union were attracted either by his personality or his personal service. In most cases, however, workers treat the union as a sort of consulting agency and treat the membership due more like a consultant’s fee. He insists that the trade union organisation should help his members to find a new job if they are sacked. The reason he thinks this is important, as he explained, is that there are so many workers being made redundant from their jobs. Therefore that is a necessary way for free trade unions to enable their organisation to survive; he asserts, the problem is only one of their will to do this, not one of access to help redundant members find jobs. We also have to note that, due to his personality, the organization has not reached something that would fall under the normal definition of a trade union. One of the reasons for his union approach, as the president continuously insisted in an indignant manner, is his doubt about workers’ solidarity. In our first interview, he finally concluded with these words: ‘There is not and there will not be a so-called workers’ movement. The workers’ movement as you thought of it, workers get together, recognise another worker as a friend, the capitalist is our enemy… there will not be such a thing. Because every worker dreams that one day he or she will become a capitalist’ (Leonid Petrov, February 04, 2003). More than once, he liked to argue that most Western leftists or trade unionists do not really aspire to make an effort to establish international solidarity. Thus, he was always sceptical about foreign trade unions. His effort to participate in international campaigns seemed to be only because he could thereby see how foreigners work and organise. The other activist of PSE was a young carriage electrician, who joined the free trade union in 2003. He is the worker that the president Petrov most appreciates. Through a friend who once received help from the PSE president, he contacted the union and came with his own awareness of labour rights. He said: ‘I became a trade union activist because over the past 11 years I have kept my mouth shut,… our wages are so low, life is just like in a prison… but finally I realized without joining a trade union you couldn’t even defend your own rights. Nevertheless, the official trade union would not provide any help for resolving your problems or your requests. They are just corrupted people…. But most of our workers are still very passive’ (VladK Carriage Electrician, May 18, 2003). Since then he has started to learn very actively, thinking about how to act and how to perform as a trade union activist without being able to share the views of others, but mainly by his own reflection. When we first met in May 2003, he was more or less optimistic about the prospects of this union, he thought that they could learn from other successful trade unions like RPLBZh. He felt that because drivers are more educated, their union is stronger; therefore they need time to educate their members. After several meetings, however, he started to show a disappointed mood about those workers who had got in trouble at their jobs and joined his trade union. Quite quickly (after about a year), the fresh activist became less optimistic than at our first talk. Although he still attended seminars or union meetings, the presence was to keep his own earlier belief: to educate himself, so that he can defend himself better.85 The change of their mood was not difficult to catch. When following their regular but unsuccessful union meetings, the moments waiting for members to come were always quite embarrassing. Normally only a few members would show up. The preparation was also poor. There is no room to share; there are no resources for the organisation. All these conditions made this union more like a union group (profgrupa) but not a complete trade union. The fact that the union can still actively exist simply reflects the fact that many railway workers are looking for someone who is more experienced so that they can help them better to negotiate with administration staff.
Compare to the train drivers, the common condition in face of workers with other professions on the Railway had never been a comfortable one in the labour market, and suffered from a high degree of job insecurity, which encouraged an individualistic orientation to face their work pressure. Workers sought for, and received, individual help from their ‘trade union boss’. The one-way service indeed satisfied workers’ immediate requests, but that left little space to present an alternative image, to develop the aspiration for better work conditions, such as the RPLBZh organisation had. They even have to struggle for the survival of the necessity of the organisation. Individualistic demands and their impact on these trade union activists therefore constantly dominated the form of their trade union development. These non-RPLBZh trade unions almost all have relied on one person － the president to run the whole organisation. The so-called leadership was conducted in a different way. Yet, that has become the only base for the visible leadership among these organisations. On the other side, from the point of view of activists, while they constantly emphasised this as a Russian philosophy of life: the activities rely on the subjectivity of workers, so there is no immediate necessity for activists and leaders to attract members’ loyalty. The non-RPLBZh unions were doomed to follow the same way as RPLBZh organisations. Nevertheless, they do not have the legacy from which RPLBZh still benefits; and, compared to the central role of the RPLBZH Moscow headquarters, they have no possibility to get more authority from their very isolated workplace to spread their messages to others. Apart from the three union organisations mentioned above, there are several tiny trade union organisations around the territory of October Railway. Their members might amount to just over a dozen, so they are not counted in this study. There is one important point we should note about all these non-RPLBZh / non-ROSPROFZhEL trade unions: the character of these trade unions indicates that they are ultimately ‘workplace’, or to say exactly ‘single depot’, organisations, hence their membership is usually only concentrated in one workplace unit. And that is the only strong resource for their leaders to keep their position. Directory: russia russia -> 852 The year when the timeline of the Primary Chronicle starts russia -> Airborne Troops (vdv) russia -> To me this is all the cards I would read (if necessary) in my 2nc russia -> Syllabus form russia -> Russian, us military planes in near miss over Syria russia -> 10: 00am–5: 00pm Participant List russia -> Russia’s Strategy in the Arctic: Cooperation, not confrontation Download 2.45 Mb. Share with your friends:
|