The labour dispute in 2004: a prelude

5.1 The labour dispute in 2004: a prelude

The process of collective bargaining was soon halted due to an internal struggle of the port management. An acting general director, Sergei Vishnyakov, had been named but the executive team was not fully authorised by the Board of Directors of JSC Seaport of St Petersburg, and the dockers were confused about whom the demands should appeal to. In the end, these four companies all faced the development towards the stage of a collective labour dispute. Despite also standing on the edge of a collective labour dispute, the trade union committee of PKT, however, reached a deal separately with their administration (subordinated to another ownership, different from that of the other three stevedore companies) later on, and finally concluded an agreement by the end of 2004. Receiving an unfamiliar expectation to meet and negotiate with the new owner, the port committee addressed their demands for the content of the new collective agreement 2005-2008. The port committee and the primary organisations of the companies PSK, VSK and ChSK proposed their demands focusing on raising workers’ real wages and the installation of an indexing mechanism.

According to the port committee of RPD, the workers at the port raised two demands for the new collective agreement: making a compensatory rise in the nominal list of tariff rates and pay for all employees; and drawing-up a common mechanism of introducing indexation of wages corresponding to inflation for all employees. Firstly, the local union organisation stressed that over the past three years, while inflation had kept going on, the employees had seen little increase in their wages, and therefore their real income had actually fallen. Having considered all reasonable factors, the union organisation suggested that compensation should be paid for wages amounting to 40 %. As the analysis presented in the previous chapter showed, the focus on real wage standard has been a constant concern and grievance among local dockers. The dockers believed that they deserved a real wage rise as well as better working conditions. These demands were proposed by representatives of each union committee to their own companies under the joint draft proposed by the port committee. The new administrative team, however, rejected all the main demands of the dockers’ union. The entangled gap between the two sides was clear. The management did not welcome the port committee’s idea of compensating workers’ wages by a more expensive mechanism of accounting for inflation; they insisted that their own mechanism of accounting for wages was enough. The representatives of the administration asserted that the port committee’s demand for increased wages was 6 times higher than the companies could offer.

According to his explanation to journalists, Boris Oslan (general director of the First Stevedore Company) suggested the disagreement was only caused by union leaders but not ordinary workers. And, ‘Workers of the Open Joint Stock Company St Petersburg Seaport and its stevedore companies are satisfied with their working conditions. Therefore there is no reason for a strike to take place’ (Birger 2004). With their more specific argument, the administration showed that they believed the wages for most dockers were good enough as their pay had risen. At a press conference, the head of the press department of Open JSC Seaport of St Petersburg (Irina Krinkun) provided more details: ‘The average wage of the docker-operators of the companies in July 2004 was 23,611 roubles, that was 20% higher than the average wage of 19,652 in July 2003…for some dockers, their wages have even been up to 35,000 roubles. Only the port committee of the Russian Trade Union of Dockers can give the answer to the question why the dockers refused to do extra work’.¹¹⁵ Actually, the administration of the three companies claimed that the nature of this conflict was only a conflict with a ‘union boss’.

The port committee, on the contrary, listed their explanations that their wages had lagged behind inflation. The average amount of lag between the increase of tariff rates and consumer price was 32.1% (compared to January 2001). The lag in the index between the increase of wages and consumer prices in the First Stevedore Company was 23.9%, 25% in the Second and 16% in the Fourth. Therefore they had insisted a fair solution can be reached only by the installation of an index mechanism included in the new collective agreement. The disagreement on the raise in the rate of payment thus started a long-term labour dispute.

5.1.1 Taking collective action: ‘working to rule’

A brigade leader who is also a militant activist described the atmosphere at his collective as such:

‘We dockers decided to act. Around all brigades there were meetings to organise the launch of collective action. That was in this way: to fulfil only the exact quota of our working norm, strictly follow instructions on labour safety, and refuse to take extra work, nor work during days-off… At the beginning, the administration resisted any compromises, the general director even claimed that he doesn’t need these dockers, said he will be happy to see the dockers get out of the gates,… but his words could not stop the collective actions…The situation lasted for two months. Then a sudden change came up. One Sunday all the crane-operators suddenly left their duties by applying for sick leave, and due to such an event the port halted the whole day long.’ (YuryR, March 21, 2005)

The special method of industrial action indeed made an impact on the operation of the railway cargo transport, because the specific character of cargo unloading at the port demands almost round-the-clock operation, and that was usually the case with seaport activity. According to the local news sources, many cargo wagons were left in the railway station near the port. On 19 July, the striking dockers reduced the unloading volume of metal and fertilizer wagons by up to three times. On the first day of the strike there were 400 wagons waiting for unloading, and the number had grown up to 800 wagons on 16 August. Due to the unloading block, the OZhD administration at first condemned the decision of the dockers publicly. The railway administration published an article, quoting the opinion of the Port administration and criticising the demands of the dockers.

In August, while the ‘Italian strike’ was still underway, the union suggested holding a new round of negotiation to reach a solution and move out from the labour dispute. The administration insisted that the port was not seriously affected by the strike threat, but tried to force the workers to keep distance from the union’s decision and go back to their duties at the same time. The administration also decided to hire temporary workers to fulfil the work that the striking dockers refused to take. The union leaders realised the critical challenge in front of them and their members, so that they kept up great efforts to maintain connections with their brigades. As Moiseenko explained its importance,

‘Difficulties in carrying out a strike may arise when there is no mutual connection between the union activists and the workers. At some moment the administration also “went to the people”, trying to agitate (workers) during the lunch break. Strengthening such a network appears to be the main task of union activists’ (Aleksandr Moiseenko, July 25, 2005).

The local RPD organization though believed that for obvious reasons, not much enthusiasm was sparked among the dockers by these steps. The management had to employ the old-style-and-well-proven technique of brigade leaders: the dockers were summoned one by one and given a pretty good dressing down. The confrontation at the workplace was more like: the least steadfast ones took their time off, those who were more sound snarled back.

While the time had been passing away and there was still no sign of a change in the employers’ position, the administration started to take the move of recruiting temporary workers (directly called ‘strike-breakers’ by the union activists) to take the duties at port. RPD activists believed they (the collectives) were not yet to go on serious strike. The port committee started to seek more public support and therefore made an appeal to the public and other trade unions. Interestingly, there has been practically no support from those from the FNPR affiliated Trade Union of Water Transport Workers, which is entitled to sign the sectoral agreement directly. On September 3rd, the port committee issued an appeal to trade unions across Russia to support their struggle. The union’s expectation of support was mild and simple. With the open appeal a form letter of concern and the contact details of the port administration were enclosed.

Response from outside came quickly. The member organisations of RPD firstly decided to hold a mild, symbolic action in support of the St Petersburg dockers. The council of the Russian Trade Union of Dockers passed a motion to hold a nationwide action (five-minute work stoppage) over all Russian seaports at 10 am on 8 September, in solidarity with the striking St Petersburg dockers. The slogan would be ‘Recompense the drop in real wages without reduction of work!’ The executive committee of RPD also declared that if the employers failed to meet the dockers’ demands, the solidarity action would be extended to an international scale. In particular, further solidarity action of the RPD member trade unions will depend on how much the ‘Italian way’ can have an effect in Russia.

The situation then received a new turning point. On 10 September, an agreement was finally reached and signed in PerStiKo and VSK. The basic content of the agreement was that the employer should set the average monthly wage of the dockers and other port workers at the level corresponding to the rate of over-fulfilment of the cargo handling norm which is agreed by both sides. Yet, the validity of the 2002-2005 collective agreement was extended for one more year. Nevertheless, the real mechanism of wage setting would wait for further discussion, and the indexation of their wages was not agreed. More than that, both sides confirmed that during the season when there is a great growth and demand for cargo handling, over-time work will provide an interest for all participants in the transport process.¹¹⁶ It seems that the dockers achieved few of their original demands, and the settlement achieved no more than to postpone the confrontation to the following year.

5.1.2 The situation in PKT

The situation in PKT had a different type of progress. In July, the representatives of the employers refused to sign the presented draft ‘‘Summary Protocol’’, which was firstly produced by the joint working group and reviewed by the working group of PKT itself. The representatives of the employers scrapped the earlier Protocol and attempted to discuss their own draft. An official re-negotiation process of collective bargaining for the 2005-2007 collective agreement was set up from 1 November 2004 and continued to the end of January 2005. The negotiation was participated in by both RPD and PRVT primary organisations (2 RPD representatives and 1 PRVT representative), who claimed the two organisations stood for one position (RPD’s proposal). Seeing the reluctant position in discussing the dockers’ proposal, the RPD union leader started to warn that a labour dispute may occur if the representatives on the employers’ side continue their passive attitude and cause further delay of the negotiation. Activists of the RPD union committee at PKT started to agitate their demands among their workers. On the newspaper ‘Doker’, a comparison list of the different contents of the current collective agreement, the employers’ proposal and the RPD union’s proposal for a new collective agreement was published. At the same time (in November), dockers were organised to voice their disappointment about the administration’s position as well as to show the necessity of taking collective action. As the trade union committee was ready to claim they had the workers’ support for collective action, the chairperson of the union committee invited the general director to attend the union’s conference in which they might vote to carry out collective action. During the conference on 17 December 2004, Evgenii Yuzhilin, the general direction of PKT agreed to accept the union’s draft for re-negotiation, so that the negotiation finally entered into a relatively smooth stage. Over a continuous hard bargaining time, the collective agreement was signed on 1 February. Negotiations though continued for another three months over the further alteration of the collective agreement. The content of the mechanism for determining real wages comprises two parts. The first part is wage indexing. It retraces back to autumn of 2004 but comes into effect by the end of 2005. According to the Agreement, from 1 January of every year the total sum will be reviewed. The second part, tariff rate of payments, will also be increased by up to 20 percent. According to the chairperson of the PKT union committee (Aleksandr Sarzhin), such a settlement was a concession of the dockers.¹¹⁷ The final settlement was cheered by activities of all port organisations. Local RPD activists believed that the positions of their employers could be distinguished and used to strengthen the union’s demands. In the later section we will see the case became the major argument for the activists of the other three companies.

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