Shih-Hao Kang a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology

4.1.3 Dockers and their working conditions at St Petersburg Seaport

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  Alongside different areas then to receive / deliver containers and cargoes
  
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  Loading / discharging of vessels
  
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  Operational handling of containers and cargoes
  
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  Storage of containers and cargoes
  
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  Checking and controlling of apparent condition of containers and cargoes
  
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  Guarding of containers and cargoes
  
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  Various transport or loading equipment
  

Officially, people who want to apply for a job as a docker have to provide health certification as the first step of meeting the basic requirements of the company. Then the applicant will normally have to enrol in the recruitment training centre to study theoretical knowledge for six months, which guarantees the trainee has got familiar with the equipments and operations. After passing a paper exam, the trainee may begin to follow the whole group for practice. There is a general instruction guidebook for each docker, and dockers belonging to different companies get their own instructions, apart from the various instrument techniques, the contents of instructions are all more or less the same.

Since the port loading work has developed with new modern equipment, the profession of being a docker is no longer to stevedore the products only with their physical body. The contemporary work relies heavily on the association of various mechanical equipments and skills. All dockers, according to their qualifications, knowledge and length of service, are distributed into four grades. These basic categories of docker-machine operator are: driver of loader (voditel’ pogruzchika); driver of electro-auto jack-lift (voditel’ elektro-avtotelezhki); crane operator (machinist krana / kranovshik); machine operator of a multi-skill brigade for cargo-handling works (tekhanizator mеkhanizator (doker-mekhanisator) komleksnoi brigady na pogruzochno-razgruzochnykh abotakh). The differences among the four grades decide the dockers’ daily working duty. For example, a docker with the 4th grade may have know-how to operate a crane, but without permission or qualification he would not be allowed to take that duty. And their part of the duty should be done only manually or by operating an electric loader (Elektropogruzchik). One of the characteristics of their port work is the requirement for dockers to have the ability to use various techniques and machines at the workplace. The dockers therefore stress that they should have learned the knowledge of how to operate different equipment and should always have higher knowledge because their duty depends on the state of the equipment provided by their companies. That is also the reason why nowadays the official title of their profession has become ‘docker-machine operator’. For the upgrade of the skill qualification, a docker needs to have completed the required working period and have the knowledge and also the available amount of the equipment at the workplace. Normally, it will take several years to get higher grades such as the second and the first. Different stevedore companies may have their own requirements for the recruitment of qualified workers. Since the main function of PKT is to handle containers, the dockers of this company have a higher percentage of first or second grades in comparison with the other companies. Noteworthily, by this procedure, dockers I talked to keep a certain confidence in their job stability, like a docker said,

‘It is not beneficial for the employer simply because the employers might want to replace a skilled worker with a non-qualified but cheaper labour force. They anyway have to put these new workers into training and that wastes money anyway’ (EvgeniiA, docker of VSK, April 06, 2004).

To complete the cargo-handling work, dockers with different grades all have to learn how to work with a whole team. Even in different companies the requirements from the management are quite similar and dockers’ duties at the port have a common characteristic. A necessary characteristic of the dockers’ job is to work to the schedule so that cargo loading meets the demands of the ordering companies. Therefore, ‘brigade’ coordination (team work) has been highly stressed as it is more important than a single worker’s knowledge / experience operating the various equipment, not only because it makes the whole team perform and complete the task with efficiency, but also because it guarantees safety during the whole process. The need for close coordination formed a quite close feeling of professional community. Thus the president of the RPD union stressed the communication characteristics of the dockers’ profession.

‘The thing is that the dockers’ profession has one characteristic: it is a brigade method of work, people communicate with one another in the course of their work. As distinct from other kinds of work… Pilots stay in a closed space, so do drivers of locomotive brigades. Dockers indeed work in brigades. It is such a consolidated social cell – a complex brigade. Moreover, in soviet times there was a practice of sending dockers from European ports to ports in the North and the Far East. People from Odessa were in Vladivostok and Vanino, southerners were in Tiksi and Anadyr, people went from Piter to Magadan, and they also sent brigades from the Baltic ports – when goods were being shipped to the far northern ports. That was because as a rule navigation was seasonal and cargoes could only be carried when ice conditions allowed. It allowed us all to communicate with each other. There was a lot of communication and contact. Problems existing in the port were discussed and compared’ (Interview with Alexander Shepel’, cited Gorn, 2003, p.236).

The coordination of the brigade work actually constitutes the core of all the activities of a stevedore company. As mentioned earlier, around the dockers’ working brigade there are also several individual persons associated with their duty, these are tally-officers and mechanics. An experienced brigade leader may distribute the division of work without the help of tally-officers.

Normally a brigade comprises four divisions, and each division has around 10 dockers. In this way, the brigade coordination for cargo-handling tasks should involve 44–50 dockers, associated with a small number of workers with other duties. The specific character of cargo unloading at the port demands almost round-the-clock operation, and that was usually the case with seaport activity. Normally every shift works two days on then has two days off. The standard shift for day shift work is eight hours, and for the night shift is 7.5 hours. A typical and practical shift schedule requires eleven and a half hours working time. For example a docker on his duty works from 9:00(am) to 9:00(pm), then next day from 9:00(pm) to 9:00(am). When asked how the workers can learn the process procedure, a docker replied in this way, ‘Our profession is unique and therefore rare. The work is not like those in any kind of factories. For the process organisation, it more like a live knowledge of the brigade experience’ (ViktorK, crane operator of PKT, February 16, 2004)

Following the coordination among brigades, for example, in Neva-Metall the total four brigades in turn fill a two-day working shift. If a personal problem arises during the process the relationships within the brigade provide the immediate solution to the situation. As a brigade leader described it:

‘Our people usually stick together, that is why outsiders may be surprised by our working language. We have our own language atmosphere. If we have a problem with the team coordination, let’s say, if someone did not fulfil his job properly, let’s say he got drunk, we resolve the problem here, I will make him obey the order. That is my job, and with a well-organised team work, we can work on our own, we don’t even need a tally-officer to confirm our handling results’ (Edward, brigade leader at Neva-Metall, August 04, 2005).

Similar responses were found in different companies.

‘Among workers in our collective almost everyone has worked here more than 10 years or even about 20 years, and all of us are soon to retire. This means we are the people with rich experience at work, and there is nothing that can replace it. Therefore we should support our organisation. It is our presence and our future’ (AleksandrC, docker of PKT, December 20, 2004)

Port workers with other profession expressed the desire that they wanted their role to be improved for they all have to bear the bad climate and ecological conditions at the port. As a female tally-officer asserted,

‘I don’t know whether the payment for working in harmful conditions has disappeared or is paid little. At least we tally-officers and warehouse keepers (smennyi nachal’nik skladov) provide the transhipment of cargoes together with dockers at the same workplace; we should be able to receive the extra payment’ (YulyaA, Tally-officer of VSK, February 05, 2004).

However, we need to note that Neva-Metall is a relatively smaller company in terms of the total labour force. There were 350 dockers divided into 4 brigades. Dockers here emphasised the difference of management policy in their company compared to that of the PerStiKo, VSK and ChSK. When talking about the relationship between the labour side and the employer side, a senior docker stressed that we may think their administration is either ‘smart’ or ‘tricky’, which presented an interesting view contrasting with the single brigade’s work relationship mentioned above. The docker said:

‘The management of our company always said if we can raise the performance of work, we will be able to receive better wages. We complained about the wreckage of our instruments constantly. The problem event caused a dispute around our brigade leaders. Some suggested not giving moral motives for raising our productivity, but we need material support. So that way made us separate. Let’s look at PK3 (PKT), they have four brigades too, but they work like a whole family, there is no competition between their brigades’ (ValeriiK, docker of Neva-Metall, June 17, 2005).

It was not yet clear to what extent the management’s method affected the workers and the coordination between brigades. Activists expressed that they had just realised that the management policy was changing, ‘the new management and employer has been getting smarter’ or ‘more experienced’ in the field of management control. When I was sitting in the union’s office where several union activists from two different companies were trying to explain the difference between the port in the Soviet time and the current time, a docker gave his own observation:

‘There has been a threat started to appear in my company. The company had faced about one million tones fall in the cargo handling volume last year. At the beginning of the year, when the seaport encountered bad weather then we had very little work to call. The management started to say there was no transportation demand, the company plan was not achieved, and also [there were] too many redundant dockers who ate up our pay. But this was all sly… because the seaport condition faced similar uncertainty, and when the weather condition recovered, we still sat at home without work. It seemed the employer was not really interested in improving the company’s performance. It seemed they got their benefits from other activities’ (OlegD, docker of PerStiKo, June 05, 2004).

As mentioned earlier, ChSK specialised in coal transportation. The working environment is considered as the dirtiest and less-skilled, in which the procedure is rather boring.

‘Maybe because our company is smaller and our administration is more out-spoken. Our workers did not feel secure with their jobs anymore. They worry not only about the guarantee of a job, but also the payment of sick pay, holidays and the bonus, the administration just said empty words to make workers imagine dreams about the future. Just like they said they will introduce extra insurance for the employees, but they never fulfilled it. At the same time the administration also had shown that if a collective labour conflict arises they will find other kind of labour force to replace the positions’ (Group interview with brigade leaders of ChSK, April 06, 2004)

Apart from their awareness of the ambiguous management tendency, the unpleasant work pressure and the physical burden (dirty and heavy workload) is a common factor in dockers’ descriptions. Due to the nature of stevedore business and the work organisation, the physical burden is the major concern related to dockers’ working procedures, which is due to the fact that dockers are exposed to an open environment without shelter through most of their working time; the pressure also comes from the weight of the goods. Before 1991, the norm for each docker was 40 tones; after negotiation the norm was reduced to 24 tones. Such a norm, however, still has a harmful effect on the health of dockers. The dockers’ union therefore has set itself the aim to make further improvement on this subject. According to the report of the chairperson of the RPD shop committee of PerStiKo,

‘The working norm for each person should be reduced to 18 tones for each 7.5 hours working day shift and to 12 tones during the same working time in the night shift’ (Timofeev, 2004, Doker, No. 143, p.2).

As relevant for the companies’ performance and also worker’ job security, a well arranged modernisation of handling techniques has been repeatedly mentioned among local dockers. This means the use of more technological equipment for loading and unloading. The development of port modernisation actually has different meanings for the dockers and for their employers. For the companies, it means more investment and improvement of their competitive ability; for workers, it means work can take place more efficiently and they face less danger at work. To take one example, the condition of their crane means the night shift operators always encounter high pressure. As mentioned earlier, a common situation around the Russian seaports is that much equipment has become outdated and that causes extra danger for dockers. Such a situation has therefore been put into the core of the dockers’ draft collective agreement in order to decrease the accidents and provide more protection for labour. More importantly, all these conditions that dockers believe they have ‘tolerated’ raised more concern about their payment scale which can be seen as a ‘rational’ or ‘relevant’ compensation for their work hardship. And from this major concern / belief we will see that the local dockers and their union organisations have acted frequently in order to guarantee their payment standard.

Related to such concern it has been said that in Neva-Metall and PKT the work environment and conditions are slightly different from those of PerStiKo, VSK and ChSK, for the equipment has to be more complicated and the operation is rather delicate. There were 845 workers, divided into 4 brigades in PKT. The territory of the company has the biggest storage for the containers. The dockers here complained about the outdated equipment.

‘For example, four out of six mooring container loaders we use have operated for more than 30 years and despite the fact that these loaders were modernised several times, they are anyway outdated. It is necessary to replace them every 2-3 years. Actually, there is a terrible lack of proper technical systems to provide unharmful conditions of container cabins for us dockers’ (Sarzhin, 2004, Doker, No. 143).
‘With such conditions, not only accidents but also the physical damage to our health really of course makes the job not easy to accept’ (ViktorK, crane operator of PKT, 29 December 2004)

Features of payment

When one looks at the size of dockers’ salaries one may soon be surprised if compare it to the level of normal Russian factory workers. Their salaries have always been considered the reward for one of those ‘big-money’ occupations that also requires tough commitment to heavy physical pressure to earn a good sum. The dockers at the port are fairly aware of their specific position as ‘well-off’, when they recalled their past times.

‘I came to the port almost 33 years ago, when LMTP was the pride not only of Leningrad, but of the whole country. I remember the time when both the state and the port administration cared about their workers. This care was expressed in the provision of workplace nurseries and kindergartens, a departmental health centre and polyclinic, a departmental holiday centre and pioneer camp, a departmental dental hospital and sanatoria and treatment centre, and the LMTP collective agreement not only protected the workers, but also helped them to feel human. This was the time every worker received a 40% bonus every quarter’ (AleksandrM, brigade-leader of VSK, June 5, 2004).

Nowadays, the wages of dockers are quite flexible; apart from the condition of a minimum wage guarantee according to the collective agreement; the monthly wage of a docker largely depends on the handling demand and his overtime hours. So we can firstly see a difference according to the seasons, for the climatic condition is a determining factor of the total volume carried (especially in winter the wages are usually lower). Apart from the general impression of the ‘well-off’ dockers among the public, we should note that for each docker the level of salary differs according to the duties and the service items of their companies. And these conditions in the current case of St Petersburg are basically categorized by the stevedore companies. A docker with a higher grade and working duties such as operating a crane may receive more pay. For a docker, the difference of his standard payment for one class difference may be up to 200 USD per month. And since the port ownership was re-organised, dockers in different parts (companies) of the port receive quite different scales of wages. The payment conditions for all dockers at the port comprise quite a large range. According to the port trade union, the minimum pay of a docker in the city was 12,000 roubles (about 400 USD) in 2003, but each company has its own payment system. For example, while dockers from the port’s main stevedore companies earned at least 850 USD in 2003, in the neighbouring timber zone of the port the workers’ average wage was about 500 USD. (Some analysts even suggested the real difference can reach less than half) Moreover, three years before, the ‘First Container Terminal’ agreed a special bonus system with the dockers. As a result the monthly pay of dockers in PKT became several thousand roubles more than that of their colleagues in other companies. To make a general comparison, dockers of PKT normally receive the highest average wages as well as the highest annual income among all port workers, because the container facility allows clients’ demands to maintain a certain level in the winter time, and because a crane operator has to hold 1st class qualification, the highest. According to the official report of PKT, the average wage of workers in PKT in the first half of 2004 was 23,000, while the average wage of their docker-mechanics was generally about 32,000 roubles. One of the reasons for PKT workers’ higher average wage is that the container truck and large container storage conditions allow the operation not to decrease too much in the winter time. Dockers in other companies normally have less demand in that season.

4.1.4 Workers’ grievances

In the previous section we have seen dockers had their complaints about the environment of their workplace and the inefficient equipment. Regarding the concern about how much payment they should receive, dockers often put the question what should be the cost of sacrificing their physical condition, because the very intensive and heavy-pressure workload can easily cause workplace accidents or problems for dockers’ health. According to an informal count of the trade union, there were in total 90 workers who suffered from serious occupational injury or illness during the period from 1996 to 2004. One feature of their work regime which puts pressure on the dockers is the norm of their daily manual capacity. The dockers’ local organisation had put this concern as their priority issue, and they had successfully reduced the limit of the norm from 40 tonnes down to 25 tonnes per shift. Nevertheless, as the union leaders argued, such an achievement has not yet met the health standard (which was suggested as 12 tonnes by an independent labour inspector), and a critical challenge to the maintenance of the norm still exists if the administration is reluctant to respect the norm restriction when there is strong demand for cargo handling.

The fact that St Petersburg is close to European business has generated the atmosphere that the port business competes with their European neighbour counterparts. The employers have often said that the handling work should be as efficient as the European level, but the workers had their words about this:

‘People should understand our work better. Our work is dirty and heavy. The work we have to take is almost exactly the same as our European counterparts have to take, but the wage is much less. What kind of European standard are they talking about?’ (VladimirK, docker of Neva-Metall, June 05, 2004)

During my research, the interviewees often emphasised that for years and years all people thought that a docker can make big money in the port, now people start to say that only in the city centre can people get such a high income. For their ‘fantastic payment’, dockers have to suffer a harmful working environment. Related to the concern above, the issue of work safety and proper equipment has also been mentioned often. A young docker mentioned the lack of sufficient equipment for their duties, especially for work with dangerous materials. A frequent problem was the failure to meet health standards. Moreover, they even expressed a view that,

‘The condition of the equipment has always breached the regulations, according to the work instruction, if we really want to carry out our duties while fulfilling the instructions, then most cargo handling work would have come to a standstill’ (AnatolyK, docker of PerStiKo, 2004).

Such complaints were also found among other professions at the port. To take another example, a female tally-officer (VSK) expressed her concern at the neglect of necessary protection under the weather conditions, which includes the lack of proper work clothes. Such conditions can be seen to be a well-recognised factor among many port workers.

Following the above concern, in most dockers’ minds the wage they deserve is a kind of exchange for the cost of their health. The logic appears as a simple balance: the dynamics of their wages should have matched their work performance, if they had sacrificed much for their duties, such as getting physical problems and less energy for families, they should at least get an equivalent payback. Demands for higher wages and salaries are not a novelty for the dockworkers. However, they have avoided staging serious actions until 2004. The dockworkers announced strikes, even claimed their legal right to strike in court, but after negotiating with the employers no real actions were undertaken. Similar wars of words normally resulted in the dockworkers’ benefiting from such situations.

The fact that cargo handling work mostly relies on the coordination of brigade work makes the workers believe there is no easy way to replace them and their skills, and so that is an obvious outlook among the port workers. The relationship between the management of the port stevedore companies and the workers did involve several conflicts but workers seemed to consider that such a relationship did not mean a harsh confrontation or suppression of the workers until 2004. A senior docker described the relationship between local dockers and their employers until the end of 2003:

‘I would say, serious conflict between employers and employees on the port has never burst till now. We are struggling for a mechanism and so far that has worked out. The number employed has actually risen and there has not been any massive lay-off. On the contrary, we have more dockers working now compared with the level of employment in Soviet times. And the strength of the trade union has also helped us to avoid such pressure’ (AleksandrN, docker of ChSK, January 21, 2004).

As mentioned earlier, when I was conducting interviews with the dockers and observing their union activity it was evident that dockers kept their faith that their work skill and the requirement of efficient coordination more or less protected their job stability from the threat of a cheaper labour force. However, the president of RPD, Aleksandr Shepel’, provided another view of the threat in an interview with a journalist. He warned:

‘There has been a problem at the various port union organisations; there the dockers’ duty was carried not by dockers but simply loaders (gruzchiki). That is, firstly, the dumping of cheap labour force’ (Gorn, 2003, p. 235).

As a result several national as well as international campaigns were held across the country (I will provide more description in the section on RPD activities). Moreover, the confidence among dockers at St Petersburg seaport was soon to be challenged by their own concern at the prospect of the Russian seaports’ handling volume and its threat to their employment security.

Apart from the change of the port employment tendency facing the local dockers, the growing concern over their real wages has become a major grievance. The rapid growth of price inflation in the city caused the fall of the workers’ real income. The dockworkers complained that all the conditions provided have not been enough for them to be able to support their families. The compensation rate over wage indexing therefore has become the most critical issue within the port labour relations since 2000. The workers’ grievances and the disagreement over the issue resulted in the latest labour conflict and strike action at the seaport. In the next Chapter I will present the details of the conflicts and how the local trade union organisation mobilised the workers to participate in the strike action.

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