Shih-Hao Kang a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology
Part Two Labour Relations in the Transport Enterprise: Two Case Studies in St Petersburg
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- 2.1 Work in the Russian railway system
Part Two Labour Relations in the Transport Enterprise: Two Case Studies in St PetersburgChapter 2 Railway workers and their organisations‘RZhD is a monster, people from above easily get lost with the various sources of receiving informal money, at the same time people working on the railways have great fear. We have little power to change such a fact!’ (Leonid Petrov, former train electrician, the president of PSE OZhD, September 14, 2005). Following the review in Chapter One, the first object of this study focuses on the workplace relations – characterised by individualism and collectivism - among railway workers. The observation aimed to indicate the role of work organisation and the social organisation of the workplace in encouraging or discouraging the formation of a collective identity. The analysis then moves to introduce the development and position of two railway trade unions. The traditional trade union on the Russian Railways has been found normally to stand on the side of the railway administration, showing little strength in defending the workers’ problems at the workplace; the active alternative trade union, however, has not succeeded in presenting an efficient competition with the traditional one. By integrating the investigation of these two sections, the further analysis is able to clarify the background when only train drivers more or less moved actively and established their own trade union, but explains why they failed to encourage other professions to join or to act on their own. The case study presented in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 is based on a two-year participant observation (December 2002 - April 2004), in which interviews were conducted continuously because most interviewees had got to know me well so that there were various chances just to chat or share hot beverages around the depots. After the first presence at their picket against Russian railway privatisation, I was soon invited to attend the regular meetings of the ‘free’ railway trade unions. In addition, several group meetings were organised under my invitation to watch Taiwan labour documentary films as well as watching Ken Loach’s ‘The Navigators’. These occasions helped me to raise issues about the ‘models’ of objective interests and the subjective responses in different societies. There was also observation and conversations with railway workers inside their workplace and workplace meetings (even inside the locomotives). Some of the meeting occasions, however, may be seen as a breach of the security rules of the depots, therefore some descriptions about their work conditions in this chapter are not given exact names; surnames of my interviewees (except the union leaders) retain only the first letter. 2.1 Work in the Russian railway system2.1.1 General backgroundThe history of the Russian railways started with the establishment of the experimental railroad between St Petersburg and Tsarskoe selo in 1837. The first major railroad between St Petersburg and Moscow was completed in 1851. Since then the role of Russian railway transport developed rapidly. At least by the end of the 19th century it had exceeded the traditional river transport and had become the most important means of transportation for the country’s domestic and international economic activities. The rank of both its volume of passengers carried for regional transport and volume of cargos were always the highest among all Russian means of transportation. The important role of the Russian railway also brought it into history and society as the key force in some critical events. The fact, for example, that there are even several children’s railways operating (in summer) for Russian children to practice the most basic procedures of railway work reflects its irreplaceable role within Russian society. The Russian railway system during Soviet times was integrated into the Unified Transport System of the Soviet Union (ETS SSSR). Its management was heavily centralised between the two world wars for the full control and deployment over both political and power struggles. It was at that time that a special code of conduct, military discipline, and even military-style uniforms were introduced into the sector, which have persisted until today. Despite the collapse of the former Soviet regime, the ETS still operated according to its united mission. The new Russian Federation took over about 59 % of the former USSR railway system, which currently embraces 17 interregional railways. As a strategic object within the Russian national economy, the whole rail industry still performs the most active role in the middle or long-distance transportation of both passengers and cargos after the de-integration of the huge soviet railway system. The economic depression, however, had an enormous impact on railroad transportation: the level of which has never fully recovered compared to the level of 1991. This is mirrored in the productivity figures, which show a steady decline in labour productivity from 1991 to 1998 as the economy sank into ever deeper recession, and a steady improvement with the economic recovery from 1998, so that productivity had regained the 1991 level by 2003, although real wages, which had collapsed immediately after the liberalisation of prices at the end of 1991, had still not reached 60% of their former level (see Figure 2.1). Furthermore, the average wage in the Russia railway sector has always been seen as one of the best among the main economic sectors. Generally, railway workers like to emphasise that their average wage in the past was in 5th-8th place within all soviet industries until the introduction of perestroika. The official statistics showed that the average wage of railway workers was about 7662 roubles in 2003, falling slightly to ninth place (see Figure 2.2).41 Nevertheless, now the railway workers complain that their wage level has fallen to 15th-18th place in the wage league table. The Russian Railway authority, though it did not deny the decline in railway workers’ wages, preferred to emphasise that the standard since 2002 had got better and that was exactly because of higher production outcomes; while the official trade union has admitted that the average wage of railway workers was too low, which was why so many workers had left the sector.42 Despite the privatisation programme introduced into most Russian industries and enterprises since the early 1990s, the railway industry and its function still directly belonged to the Russian federal government as a state organ until 2004. Before the railway reform, the whole industry was assigned under the control of the Ministry of Railway Transport (MPS). In October 2003, the Open Joint-stock Company Russian Railways (JSC Russian Railways) was formed to replace the previous structure, marking the second step of the Russian railway reform programme, while the original team of the Ministry now became the heads of the new state-owned company. Apart from the pressure from international financial organisations such as the OECD and the World Bank, the other reason for undertaking the reform was that the administration was not satisfied with the low performance of the current railway workforce. Therefore, the MPS set up the reform programme while emphasizing that the prior task was to increase the work motivation of railway workers. Figure 2.1: Tendency of real wage and labour productivity of the Russian railway sector from 1992 to 2003 and projection to 200543
Upper line: change of real wage (December compared to December 1991); Lower line: Change of labour productivity (compared to 1991) h Data source: Statistics of JSC Russian Railways, Dinamika real’noi zarabotnoi platy i proizvoditel’nost’ truda za period 1992-2002 gg., i prognoz na period do 2005 g. (% k urovnyu 1991g.), 2003. 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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