Shih-Hao Kang a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology
The characteristics of the dockers’ coordinated workplace unionism
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- 5.3.2 Social partnership in action
- 5.3.3 Internal and external coordination
- External coordination
5.3 The characteristics of the dockers’ coordinated workplace unionism5.3.1 Deliberate mobilisationThe whole process of the labour dispute at the St Petersburg Seaport in 2004 and 2005 revealed several dynamic characteristics of labour relations at the port, especially that between the employer and the union, over the recent time. Regarding the members’ concern for their real wages, the RPD union organisations at St Petersburg seaport had been cautiously exercising their strength. The initiative of taking industrial action to put pressure on the administration did not come from workers’ spontaneous resistance but was planned and organised by the port committee with practical consideration of the required legal procedures. Impressively, these plans and strategy were widely exercised by the activists. With the review of the process of the entire dispute in 2005 we can find it comprised several events as below: Official re-negotiation (1 April to 30 June) Dockers’ first-stage conference (30 May) First-step action of the dockers: ‘Work without enthusiasm’ (from June) Conference decision for a warning strike (15 July) Pressure on the port committee was directly conducted by the administration; allegation of a negative campaign from local media – (August) Conference decision for indefinite strike action (12 August) Negotiation over the agreement with the employers failed again Solidarity action from local trade unions acted Appeal to the city government / appeal to President Putin (30 August) Indefinite strike (30 Aug -12 Sep) More importantly, the strength of the port organisations came from the cooperation between union activists in the brigades and the brigade leaders. The methods of their industrial actions show that the port organisations have found their own balance of the subjective and objective factors that union organisations have to consider. Firstly, after the new Russian Labour Code took effect, the more complicated procedure of calling a strike has made it more difficult as it requires good organisational preparation of the union organisation. The union therefore preferred using an ‘Italian strike’ for their first warning message to the management. The characteristic of dockers’ work, which relies heavily on brigade coordination, allows dockers to control their whole team timetable relatively easily. As the union leaders emphasised, they have union activists in each brigade and can control the cooperation of the brigades. Union activists (some are themselves brigade leaders) took the brigade meeting to raise issues related to their working condition and the analysis of the port organisations. The channel for workers to contact the union is either through the shop committee or the brigade. Such a practice enables activists to gain the support of their collective, and to be active for the union in their brigades too. Certainly, not all of the brigade leaders strictly obey the union’s decisions. The fact that local RPD activists warned the company should not employ temporary works reflected the fact that there were indeed some brigade leaders who put aside the conflict condition but accepted those workers to cover the loss of the strikers’ handling capacity. One of the most important conclusions arrived at by the trade union activists in summing up the strike action is that the new collective agreement (the old one expires in December) should comprise a principle of elected positions for group leaders and brigade leaders. This means that the port organisations can always keep a dozen activists at a time and do not have to worry too much if these activists are inactive among their colleagues. Such tight networks, on the other hand, ensure that any situation from the grassroots can be transmitted back to the union committee or port committee efficiently. To take one example, when the warning strike had taken place both the general directors of JSC Seaport of St Petersburg and PerStiKo started to visit dockers face to face, they explained their position and methods of improving the working conditions. As is often the case, the battle line between the workers and administration was the bitterest at the middle level – the one of brigade-leaders and group leaders that had found themselves between the devil and the deep blue sea. An atmosphere started to spread, workers were even given a hint in the brigades: “should you want to get back to your brigade your comrades might not welcome you back”. The RPD activists immediately organised an open letter to appeal to all dockers to be aware of the beautiful lie of the administration, under the name of ordinary dockers, brigade leader and chairperson of the union committee. As a result of the dockers’ organisational practice, the union attracted enough dockers who are active among workers to form the necessary commissioned bodies such as a strike committee or negotiating groups. In other words, such an exercise established the basis for an efficient mobilisation. Still, it is also apparent that the port committee realises the importance of broad participation – a well-prepared conference. When the administration tried to wipe out the status of the port committee, the decision of the conference had supported their decision and their resistance to the administration. In other words, conference resolutions were produced to associate the union activities and so to authorise their decisions. The port committee published details of the draft to the workers so their workers had clear information about the demands of their union and the difference between the union and the employers. Noteworthily, it is insightful to note the publication and circulation of the specially edited union newspaper ‘Doker’ that reveals more of the port committee’s concern at efficient agitation among their members. The publication of their newspaper provided a clear function of union propaganda especially to provide explanations or make mobilisation appeals to the workers. In order to educate their members about the content of the united draft of the collective agreement for all stevedore companies, the port committee ordered 4,000 copies of the draft.
The above expressions may not demonstrate a clear difference to distinguish it from the general or ideal definitions of other Russian trade unions. As mentioned earlier, most social partnership supporters, even FNPR organisations, officially declare that the whole process certainly includes negotiation, confrontation and compromise. The most meaningful character in this case study comes out because the dockers’ union organisations have kept a very active position in the period of collective bargaining. They delivered the will of a mutually acceptable solution, and also mobilised the members to be ready for further collective action. From conference resolutions, union appeals, to explanations of their industrial actions, the union has always emphasised their will as a complement to social partnership. The resolutions of the union conferences held on 15 July 2005, for example, revealed that the activists’ definition of social partnership and their interpretation of the conflicting events created a ground to attribute the failure to achieve social partnership to the employers’ irresponsibility in relation to the company’s development. Such a use directly helped the dockers to legitimise the work stoppage as well as the way the labour conflict occurred with respect to ‘social partnership’. Such a strong logic had been revealed in these recent struggles over the prospect of reaching a new collective agreement with the employers. A docker thus asserted, ‘The response received from the representatives of the administration, however, does not deliver the employers’ attempt at social partnership, but mostly causes social tensions in the collectives’ (Nefedov, 2005, Doker, No 151, 30 June 2005, p.3). The dockers also point out that the problem was due to their partners’ attitude. They accused the representative on the employers’ side of ignoring the issue of social partnership, instead of which, these representatives always asserted that to fulfil clients’ demands is the priority in the face of all ‘collectives’ and that is their major line for resolution. Such a priority could easily make dockers complain that what condition can social partnership still be in if the workers have nowhere to step back.
Social partnership as an organisational platform for a strategic response The 2004 dispute case of PKT provided a typical demonstration of how to use social partnership for the workers’ position. When the negotiation for the new collective agreement was just about to start (pre-negotiation period), the chairperson of the union committee firstly explained what are the foundations of social partnership and what should be considered in the new agreement. The dockers’ original reference to social partnership, as described in Chapter Four, came up at the early stage in 2004, and that was to justify their later demands and actions. The dockers, however, did not only stick with the expectation of the prospects of the companies and the principle of social partnership. They had exercised a more reflexive strategy for the negotiation. During the negotiation period, another context of employing social partnership started to come out. When the negotiation reached the period that the administration showed reluctance to meet the union’s proposal, the harmony atmosphere immediately changed. The union committee at PKT very soon responded to the situation and revealed the possible scene of raising a labour dispute; in late 2004, the union committee had issued their new message accusing the employer of losing the ground of being partners. By questioning the trust and social partnership relationships between the labour collective and the management, the message was critical of the company administration. The chairperson often projected the warning as ‘Why is this (dispute) necessary for us, and who should take responsibility?’(Sarzhin, 2004, Doker, No. 145, 14 November 2004, p.1) Only later on, the appearing labour dispute ended when the message and the pressure of the employees had reached the employer, and a satisfactory collective agreement for 2005-2008 had been signed. The case of the 2005 labour dispute at three port companies showed more about the typical response from the union’s side. This time, their message was even stronger since the bargaining had actually failed in the first negotiation round but both sides agreed to restart it from April 2005. One of the messages was ‘Social partnership or collective labour dispute?’ which implied that if the employers intend to choose social partnership then they should sign the collective agreement including the workers’ demands; otherwise a collective labour dispute would occur. In the conclusion of the article, the author gave a ‘tougher message’: at the conference it is ‘possible’ to adopt the resolution for collective action (Belyaev, 2005, Doker, No. 150, 26 May 2005, p.1). Following the further developments over the 2005 labour dispute, the relationship between the administration of the three stevedore companies and the dockers had become full of tensions. The unions had held the strike action. A member of the strike committees presented another tone of employing the term social partnership as the administration was on the opposite of the principle. His claim was the following: ‘As for the support of the strike committee, we may consider it as preparing a solution, aimed at attracting cargoes and the progress of production. Those actions aimed at disrupting production will be blocked. We hope that the employers will realise their attempt to break up the social partnership system, which has existed at the port for years, has no prospects’ (Press conference recording, August 17, 2005). Such a tone revealed that ‘social partnership’ was also used as a sort of defensive weapon for carrying out industrial action. There are varieties of attaching the term to compatible contexts. Again, observation found that the dockers’ port committee tried to get back to peaceful labour relations under the direction of ‘social partnership’. And still, the term is a principle in the field of resolving labour disputes. The port committee presented a proposal to the port administration before they finally took the strike action. While this term was used in this proposal, the dockers did not mention a specific plan or mechanism of resolving the dispute. Apparently, their main idea was not to address a new framework for resolving the problem but simply to restore a dialogue with the employers. Coordinated tactic for broader moral pressure More interestingly, the further event shows more that the port committee even learned to coordinate all their experiences in order to accumulate more credit for their interpretation of social partnership. The approach was to raise the case of their counterparts, where a better collective agreement had been signed, to put the employers under moral pressure for the latter’s stubborn refusal. The previous dispute at PKT in 2004 had ended with the final achievement of the union’s proposal being accepted. From mid 2005, the union organisations of the other three companies acted together with the coordination of the port committee. They referred to the experience of PKT and stressed the visible growth of the company’s performance at the port, to show that that is the way to realise social partnership. Similarly, the union’s success in two companies was used to stress their definition. ‘In the two port companies, Neva-Metall and PKT, the employers and the workers act constructively, which is in compliance with the principle of social partnership’ (Petrov, 2005, Doker, No. 153, 08 July 2005, p.1). Understandably, that had become another advantage enabling the activists to point at the employers of the three companies when the question arose as to who should take responsibility for breaking up the relations of social partnership. Moreover, the dockers’ union organisation was determined to conduct the whole strike campaign with the same pattern. The port activists were even able to coordinate not only their comrade union organisations but also concerned politicians. In that way, they could use those individual influences to form a simple and unified tone, and be able to blame the employers for their failure to carry out social partnership. Through such a solidarity campaign, the moral pressure of the dockers’ side was actively unified and strengthened. Apart from the brief review of the use of the term ‘social partnership’ at the St Petersburg Seaport, one more important fact should be taken into account: there have been strike threats or warning strikes at the port almost every year since 1998. The scenario at the port has been more similar to the traditional model of conflict between the workforce and capital. The dockers used the term ‘social partnership’ more often at times when the working group on the collective agreement met with stubborn rejection from the side of the employers. For many activists, ‘social partnership’ means a reflection of civilised relations, which is particularly applied critically to the position of the employers. If one looks at the words the union uses in its bulletins, one finds that, instead of referring the conflict to any existing Russian institution of social partnership, the union activists are more likely to take ‘principle’ or ‘in the spirit’ of social partnership (‘v dukhe sotsal’novo partnerstva’); and normally linked with words like ‘civilised’, ‘progressive’ or ‘constructive’ to define the value of the term. By firstly declaring that they would like to work without troubles and together with the management to stabilize or strengthen the performance of the seaport, the effect of such an expression was to strengthen their moral and reasonable pressure on the employers. Also quite obviously, the dockers emphasised the real meaning of social partnership to point at the employers’ reluctance to obey its principles as determining the legitimacy of decisions to take collective action. 5.3.3 Internal and external coordinationIn was obvious that the port committee and its union committees tried to clarify who was to be blamed for the conflict. The official procedure requires the collective agreement to be signed only by the primary union organisation and the administration of each company, the strikers and the union firstly point at the general director of each stevedore company. There were indeed minor campaigns of confrontation with the individual administrations of the companies. Later on, the port committee coordinated all its strength to blame one object – the group of the main owners. The union activists named the three stevedore companies as Lisin’s Group, and it was the representatives of this group who caused the conflict. The union activists only brought this administration into the centre of responsibility. According to such a definition, the port committee successfully brought its union committees and its members to act together. As described earlier, before the occurrence of the 2004 conflict, all the union committees adopted a common proposal for the collective agreement and presented common demands. They then held joint or coordinated conferences, produced common documents, and carried out joint actions. The local RPD organisation embraced in total about 20-30 people (included leaders and workplace activists) to carry the union performance and activism. Moreover, the port committee functioned as the highest coordinator and authority of the collective (workers of the three companies as a whole). In addition, during the period of the dispute, the two trade union committees from PKT and Neva-Metall though had settled agreements with their own administrations, contributed at least a minor part in the struggle. The chairpersons of the union committees of PKT and Neva-Metall from time to time showed their solidarity message to the strikers through the newspaper, saying their union committees are ready to take further solidarity action to support the struggle. Apart from the chairperson of the union committee’s participation in the campaign, three representatives of PKT dockers also expressed their support for the dockers of the three companies. They conducted a one-minute warning strike by their dockers at each shift to show a signal of their operating equipment, such as loaders, container lifters and port cranes for one minute when they started work on each shift. After all, the activists tried to establish a scene in which they could be ready to call for further support action. A limit of the coordination of the port committee, however, existed (but was often ignored by observers). One may find that the union organisation of ChSK seemed much weaker than that of PerStiKo and VSK. The scenario that the activists exposed their members to face more harassment during the strike action showed the weak strength of the union organisation and workers there are more vulnerable to their management. More critically, members from other companies such as Neva-Metall were less enthusiastic towards the striking dockers. If solidarity was shown then it was primarily arranged by the union committees, and there were very few messages directly from dockers from the other two companies. Actually, that was the union activists trying to bring more of a solidarity atmosphere. It is hard to say that dockers from other companies really kept their eyes on the event. In an interview with active RPD members from Neva-Metall, a brigade leader (also RPD union activist) said frankly that the union’s newspaper did not provide much useful information so he barely read it; he believed the port committee and the union committees of PerStiKo, VSK and ChSK had made tactical mistakes in their collective bargaining. In his own opinion, even the idea of a united draft of the collective agreement was not necessary since their employer is more ‘progressive’ and it is possible to open their own collective agreement with him. The scene revealed the weakness of the union propaganda: we can do our best only on our own. The chairperson of the Neva-Metall union committee actually admitted in an interview that it would be very unlikely that they will conduct any serious strike action or even solidarity campaign, and indeed there were no solidarity message nor associated action from his members. The fact was that actually only the chairperson of the union committee at Neva-Metall ever voiced his support but no grassroots RPD members expressed support. Their opinions to some extent provide an explanation of why there were no solidarity words directly from the members of Neva-Metall. After all, the condition of solidarity mobilisation reflects the boundary of the capacity of the union core. In other words, the port committee had a certain authority to ‘conduct’ the strength of solidarity but not yet to bring broader support from the ground of the port workers as a whole. It was even critical to note that when the port committee made their appeal to the public and other Russian trade unions for a solidarity campaign in 2004, they could not even convince their own members to make an appeal. More concretely, through the whole mobilisation and solidarity making, we could note that the ‘community’ support from other dockers was varied. External coordinationIn Chapter Four we have seen the port committee was the only representative in the field of external contact. The port committee was in charge of negotiation and organised external contacts during the conflict. As mentioned earlier, the port committee carried the role of internal and external coordination during the dispute. From 6 July 2005, a nationwide campaign to support local dockers’ demands was launched by the port committee. Since then, dozens of support letters flew in to the port committee. Interestingly, most letters or messages were from local union organisations or militant labour organisation like Zashchita truda or alternative trade unions like FPAD and SOTsPROF; from other seaport organisations all they received was a support letter from the dockers of Murmansk port. Moreover, over the dispute period, the local dockers’ organisation produced a formal protest letter several times for those friendly union organisations to use. During the period of the warning strike, the council of RPD sent off their solidarity letter. The port committee also received solidarity letters from a dozen primary union organisations from different sectors. Interestingly, neither other RPD port organisations nor their friendly unions such as RPSM had shown a strong voice providing solidarity. On 1 September, the RPD president Alexander Shepel’ made a public comment on the dispute at the St Petersburg Seaport. He also claimed he was ready to provide his support for the port committee’s action. Formally, the intervention of the RPD president was not obligatory. And the general secretary of ITF stated that the intervention of ITF would be possible only if RPD made a formal request to the Federation. The dockers’ struggle also attracted a great deal of attention from labour organisations in St Petersburg. Even before their final strike action, the port committee had informed local activists of the situation regarding their collective bargaining through Round Table Meetings, which were organised by EGIDA. Despite the cautious attitude of the leaders of the port committee, other St Petersburg labour activists finally agreed to establish a solidarity campaign. On 3 August, the members of the Port committee of RPD met local labour activists to discuss how the solidarity action could be launched. The local labour activist participants decided to form a Solidarity Committee for the Dockers’ Struggle. Interestingly, the tactic of the RPD port committee, or more exactly to say, the intercourse between the port committee and other labour organisations, was that the dockers’ leaders preferred a protest letter to the administration but not direct action such as meetings or pickets. The reason that the docker activists were reluctant of conducting their own pickets to some extent reflects the fact that the dockers’ activism was rather well conducted by union leaders but not a strong collective self-mobilisation. The activists had explained they might lead members to carry less work but were not able or willing to ask the members to really put down the work and go onto public protest. On 19 August, activists of several local unions organised a solidarity meeting in order to show their support for the dockers’ action. The meeting firstly took place at the city metro station Baltiskaya, where they distributed newspapers of the dockers’ union and other solidarity union newspapers. The participants later on moved to a place near the location of the port committee’s office. About 50 people in total participated in the meeting, included RPLBZh, Trade union of Workers of ‘TEK’, Trade Union of Workers of ‘Vodokanal’, Trade Union of Employees of Airport ‘Pulkovo’. Activists of several left-wing political organisations also participated. The president of the port committee showed up and gave a short speech to the participants. The dockers then left for the office of the port administration to attend another round of negotiation with the representatives of the employers. At the occasion of a solidarity campaign on 16 August, Aleksandr Moiseenko requested local labour activists to restrain the campaign from disturbing the progress of their negotiations. The situation showed that the leadership of the port committee would like to conduct the campaign on their own rather than develop the situation into broader protests. 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:
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