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

2.3.3 RPLBZh - Russian Trade Union of Locomotive Brigades of Railway Workers

At the founding conference, 35 delegates representing 12 depots came to Moscow and participated in the establishment of the organisation. The new trade union decided to take a direct democratic principle: the central organ of RPLBZh should be formed from representatives of each primary organisation. The first president of RPLBZh, Varelii Kurochkin, at the time was also the chairperson of the previously mentioned Strike Committee. In a month, two more strike actions took place at two depots, firstly on 1-3 March at Moscow-passenger-Kursk, then at Moscow-passenger-Kiev on 5-6 March. The administration of the Moscow Railway hit back this time with the method of sacking leaders and demoting the drivers. Such a move, however, did not stop the general mood of the strikers and the new organisation survived the fierce pressure. Not surprisingly, just like other new Russian trade unions at that special time, the new trade union had a similar background – formed during or after a historical action. That was the period of ‘making an effort to establish any kind of democratic organisation, including trade unions’ (RPLBZh, 2002, p.115). With such an atmosphere, branches in five of the total nine depots of the Moscow-Kiev route of Moscow Railway were established immediately, because the chief of their administration did not impose strong pressure on them. However, its most active members and bases came from three depots: Moscow-passenger-Kursk, Moscow-passenger-Kiev, and the Motorcoach Depot Moscow-2.

The principle of the union’s membership followed the then fashionable professional type across the new Russia in the early 90s. The new union allowed only drivers and assistants of metropolitan trains, diesel and electro locomotives, and students taking professional railway courses to join their organisation. The goal of RPLBZh mainly focused on achieving the collective agreement negotiation based on profession.⁷¹ The membership of RPLBZh has remained at about 3,000 for a long time, coming from about 35 locomotive depots across the nation. These included Moscow, Moscow region, St Petersburg, Tula, Vladivostok, Kaliningrad, Rostov-on-Don and Bataisk.⁷² Based on the distribution of these primary organisations there are three territorial organisations. Yet, the member organisations of RPLBZh emerged at different times. For example, the union organisation at the Moscow-passenger-Kursk depot was formed on November 21 1991. The original base for drivers to make this call used two methods: the route and depot connection, and the individual relationships generated in their railway institute. For example, the initial group of the first St Petersburg trade union committee who contacted Moscow’s initial group in 1992 were from the depot on Finland Rail Station TCh-12 where the people had personal contact with the Moscow initiators. By and large, the most well-developed primary organisations are from the Moscow Railway. Since the culture at each depot, as we have seen in the previous section, is rather different, such a dimension does not mean that these union organisations have shared a common status. According to their organisational history, the primary organisations from the same railway did not gain similar strength. That is a clear sign of the difficult capacity of the new union.

The leadership has been quite stable since the union was formed. Valerii Kurochkin was the union’s president until his retirement from railway duty in 1999. His deputy, Aleksandr Veprev, the chairperson of another active union committee from the Pushkino depot, was elected as the new leader at a special convention in October 1999. At the meeting the leadership was expanded by receiving four deputy presidents with the Russian committee being renamed as the executive committee. Nevertheless, Vladimir Veprev retired from railway duty shortly after. In 2001, Evgenii Kulikov, the former chairperson of the trade union committee of the locomotive depot Moscow-passenger-Kursk of Moscow Railway was elected as the new president of RPLBZh. Kulikov was once a KOMSOMOL secretary before he became an engine driver. He worked at the Movskovskaya – passenger – Kurskaya depot when the 1992 strike action took place, and was one of the strike front leaders. Such an action immediately meant he became the first victim under administration pressure; he was sacked by the depot administration right after his activism and only returned to his post when he won a court case one and half years later. Kulikov has actively participated in RPLBZh since then. He also led the 1998 strike on Moscow Railway. In addition, Kulikov has also been the vice-president of the Confederation of Labour of Russia (KTR).

When RPLBZh was formed, the macro situation and atmosphere in Russia led the new organisation to set up the Russian Committee as the central organ within the union structure. The design was not changed until the amendment of the union charter in 1999. According to the RPLBZh Charter, the trade union is constructed on the production-territorial principle. At the national level of RPLBZh, there are two governing bodies – the central committee and the executive committee. The members of these two committees are elected at the union convention (held every three years). The central committee is the governing representative body composed of the president and the deputy presidents of the union, presidents of territorial organisations and the representatives of primary organisations, which are based on the principle of one-organisation-one-representative. The executive committee includes the union president and his deputy (-ies) which is designed as the permanent governing organ to represent the union as a legal entity. A special regulation requires the president not to be a trade union committee member of a primary organisation or the representative of a primary organisation on the central committee.

The weak financial position since RPLBZh was formed has meant that the union could only afford its president along with office staff to conduct its national activity. The deputies usually stay at their own depot offices.

Under the national trade union organisation, there are territorial organisations (TO) to represent railway workers on different Russian railways. The superior organ of the territorial organisation is the conference (konferentsiya), which should be held not less than once every two years. The TO then has its territorial or railway committee (DK / TK) as the non-permanent active body, conducting the functions between the two congresses, in which the plenary meeting should meet not less than once every half-year. The presidium of the railway committee (PDK / PTK TO), which actually means the president and the deputy, is the permanent executive organ of the TO. Above the PDK is its Central Committee, as the superior body within the whole RPLBZh structure. According to the RPLBZh Regulation on Territorial Organisation, the president of the TO cannot stand as one of the railway committee members at the same time.

According to RPLBZh’s chapter for primary unions, the superior organ of a primary organisation is the general meeting. Unlike the design at the upper levels, the trade union committee is designed as its permanent executive organ which represents the legal entity between two general meetings. The superior organ of the primary organisation is the general meeting, which is required not less than once every six months, while earlier it was required to meet not less than once every three months. Although there is a design and establishment of the Committee of Audit Commission (KRK) as the revision organ, in practice, union activity is dominated by the union committee or simply the president. Even if there are internal problems, usually they still rely on the union committee to resolve the conflict. In addition, primary organisations have a right to establish union groups under certain considerations. The leaders at any level should not be leaders in any political or non-union organisations.

The percentage of members’ union dues shows RPLBZh heavily needs the contributions of its members. As ROSPROFZhEL asks members to pay not less than one percent of their monthly salary, RPLBZh requests each member who is a normal railway worker to pay not less than 2 percent of the monthly salary as their union due. Members who are pensioners or students are required to pay not less than 10 percent of the minimum wage (monthly) (MROT). Actually, RPLBZh adopts a flexible policy on collecting union fees. Members can pay their monthly fee either by the check-off through the administrative accounting department in their workplace or by personal hand-in to the cashier at any level of the RPLBZh organisation. The Charter also gives primary organisations the right to increase the rate of union fee for their members. In some primary trade union organisations, the union due is two percent or even up to four percent of the member’s monthly salary, while the charge for unemployed, students and pensioners is only one rouble. The dual options of payment certainly requires each primary organisation to open its own bank account which allows the members to choose the way they prefer. The primary organisation should also control its own property. While in practice several RPLBZh primary organisations are not able to gain the status of legal entity, the Charter has noted that members of these organisations should make their cash accounting to other organisations which have received the legal entity status.

To extend the union’s ability, the union organisations at each level have the right to form various commissions or inspection agencies so that they can carry out the functions required in the Charter. Such commissions, however, are hardly to be seen since so far only the presidents or a few activists carry out most union organisational activities. For internal communication, the organisation has had its own newspaper ‘Lokomotivsoyuz’ since 1996, usually circulated among drivers who are already members. Due to financial concerns, the circulation is quite limited since the official print run has been only 990 copies since it has been published. Probably due to the financial concerns, RPLBZh only very rarely publishes pamphlets or papers in workplaces. The content of Lokomotivsoyuz usually covers court cases over RPLBZh activities, references or analyses of legal consultation and editorial comments on various crude moves of the MPS or ROSPROFZhEL. At the regional or primary organisation level, some union committees also issue their own bulletins. But these bulletins are not issued regularly. Also it should be noted, these communication hardly mention the concrete features of primary organisations such as membership, characteristics, working conditions or introduction of people, which indicates a weakness in sharing knowledge about working conditions and union life.

For primary organisations, the common method is to spread its message by using an information board near the union office. This channel focuses on activists providing help or consultation for workers and members who are angry or disappointed with the performance of their traditional trade union. Certainly, the activists also provide basic consultation to those workers who stay with ROSPROFZhEL since many workers – their colleagues – still believe that they should gain benefits or privileges from staying in the official trade union. When these workers gradually realize that they gain very little from the official trade union they start to think of leaving it. If they have also heard RPLBZh activists’ explanations that those social benefits are not necessarily distributed by ROSPROFZhEL, they would be more likely to consider joining the alternative union. The office of the union committee therefore provides the atmosphere for workers to receive useful help and the space for interacting about their work difficulties.

Formally, the RPLBZh membership relies on the grievances of workers rather than promoting the union message. Saying that their trade union is still very young is a common expression among activists. With a sigh, they also try to convince people to understand that until now, Russian trade unions cannot be like trade unions in the West. ‘They have ability, but we don’t!’ is one of the constant messages they want to send. The relation from experience to intention seems mixed up when they present such arguments.

The change of RPLBZh membership principle shows another apparent weakness of the union’s organisational activities. As mentioned in the previous section, the character of the coordination of train driving, however, raises huge uncertainty about their duties, and that logically generates a strong mood of alienation for train drivers from line engineers, car engineers, traffic engineers and traction engineers. Such a kind of alienated consciousness in their specific working conditions, as well as the feeling of unreasonable responsibility in their duties can be seen as one of the factors which caused the train drivers to establish a profession-based new union. In addition, drivers on many occasions also show little respect for rail workers with other professions. Though they do not openly despise low-status or less-skilled workers, train drivers in general are proud of the level of their education against which they might doubt that the majority of the other workers are ready to learn and defend their own rights. If that is an existing fact, the challenge is exactly how RPLBZh activists and leaders can bring the change in the union charter into practice.

I tried to ask trade union activists about any resolution after the new union charter had been adopted, and RPLBZh has become a trade union for all railway workers. The following conversation with Vitali Zhyutikov, the deputy president of TO RPLBZh OZhD, occurred in 2003. The topic was around concerns like, ‘Have you started to recruit new members?’ ‘What do you usually do to attract members’ attention to the message you want them to receive?’

‘Vitali, have you done anything to try to attract new members?’ (S.K., researcher)

‘Oh, we just got two new people who seem to be interested in our trade union’ (the deputy president).

‘But I am talking about other workers, not drivers, for example, how about those who are now working on the railway tracks just outside this building? They recently even sleep in the hall of this building, don’t they? ’ (Originally, I expected he might say ‘No, Sasha - the leader of the tiny organisation of track workers - should take charge of them, they are track workers and so is Sasha.’)

‘No, it will only be a waste of time. They care nothing about their own rights. These are immigrant workers, all they can care about at the moment is just that very little amount of money’ (the deputy president)

‘OK, I understand’. (S.K.)

About one month later, I raised a similar topic with Andrei Gavrilov, the deputy president of RPLBZh, who was also the chairperson of the union committee of TCh-8:

‘Andrei, have you started to discuss any new strategy aiming to recruit new members?’ (S.K.)

The chairperson gave me a strange glance first, but did not answer.

‘You know, now you have to face people you do not know very well’. I tried to explain my question. He then told me,

‘How am I able to answer your question? You know, here every one of us has his own strategy. You have to understand, most people now do not know what they should stand for. We do not have the possibility and resources to do what we have seen in European countries, like in Germany. There they can make uniform for members and stand on the street to recruit people, here in Russia, we don’t get such things’ (The chairperson of the union committee of TCh-8, June 05, 2003).

The interview again finished with his words emphasising they can only expect workers to stand up themselves, because Russian people and the society are different from the West, there is no way to think of ‘from campaign to mobilisation’.

For the improvement of their organisational skills and knowledge of the labour law, RPLBZh organizations do hold several seminars. I asked activists and RPLBZh members, did they conduct any seminars to improve their internal organisational skill, or to learn how to implement labour actions? Quite surprisingly the immediate responses were somehow different and confusing. Gradually, I realized that they did sometimes hold seminars, but who really arranged these seminars is quite ambiguous. In general, the AFL-CIO-funded juridical consultation centre for trade unions – Solidarinost’ – was the main sponsor of these seminars. From reference books of labour law, to the seminar contents and even participants’ access to the seminars, all involved the sponsorship of Soridarnost’. (It is though not clear since when the American organisation started to play an important role in RPLBZh’s organisational work.) Solidarnost’ had always sponsored RPLBZh with various resources. These include funds for specific uses (for paying personnel as legal consultants); reference books on relevant labour laws; skills in organising union activities; analyses or strategies for the Russian trade union movement.⁷⁴ Even the local RPLBZh organisations in St Petersburg had held several seminars in Repino town which were also sponsored by Egida. Nevertheless, the estimation of the effect of these seminars differed. Some activists simply ignored them as pure ‘Americans’ stuff’; while others thought the real issue was that they should be able to keep the professional and practical help from Egida. It seems that RPLBZh activists have a limited capacity to conduct their own training courses, since few activists were interested in learning union practice, and their main direction is to show their ability in legal cases, so the practice of organisational work usually took second place to the legal consultation centre.

The coordination work within RPLBZh reveals more of its organisational weakness. The current president of RPLBZh, Evgenii Kulikov, has been much more active in union activities than his predecessors were. His personality makes him able to express himself well and promote his trade union effectively. Kulikov also knows pretty well how to use labour law and interpret it. As a leading agitator, he even took the chance of meeting with local ROSPROFZhEL staff to demonstrate what his union can do and ROSPROFZhEL can follow. As the president of RPLBZh, he does not enjoy very high status, since the financial condition of the union can afford only two full-time staff: a legal consultant and the president. So the president has to be in charge of a lot of duties, from being a seminar tutor to updating information on their official website. The busy duties actually bring RPLBZh to a less coordinated situation. To take one example, the president had only a very unsure idea about the membership of their primary organisations (he guessed that there were not more than 40 members in the two depots in Perm). When he heard the real number of this new local primary organisation, he said, ‘This is not good, we need more!’ Another union activist said that they actually thought Kulikov himself did not have to come to the local seminar, but the reality of the union’s organisational ability pushed him to work in this way. These related to the lack of seminar lecturers or skilled activists, so they mostly relied on activists who had been sent to the USA to take special training courses on conducting union seminars. In total, there were only about five people who were chosen and sent to the USA, and Kulikov was one of them. In general, the union structure is simple, and the leaders have little authority while the not-so-big union has always relied heavily on the capacity of its individual leadership.

Over my research period, I was quite confused by how they might give me more positive clues about the methods of more aggressive contact and mobilisation among ordinary workers in order to stimulate union participation. After asking the question several times in my way, I realized there is something quite important to note: they would not be bothered with this sort of question; the words with which they responded reflected something deep, within their beliefs about their life philosophy over social relations. If we take this aspect, it will be more useful for us to understand the way they think of being a trade unionist. For example, according to the leader of the RPLBZh territorial organisation on the October Railway, a big problem in their organisational affairs is that they do not have enough serious trade unionists (his implication was about the leaders from the other free trade unions of OZhD). With such a weak union presence, it is not easy to identify what factors undermined their organisational work among the railway workers. When I came to start the fieldwork and visited the first depot (Moscow Station, St Petersburg) at the primary organisation level, I did see that a certain group of workers visited the union office, most of them were young or middle aged, they came to the office and preferred an easy chat, or helped with tiny things, but few were involved in regular meetings. The union’s help is more like personal advice, whether or not they mention the issue related to joining the trade union. A young worker expressed it in this way, ‘They are nice fellows, I don’t really expect their help, the union committee is weak, we all know that, but it is fine just to come and chat with them, they are nice guys, that is good enough for me’ (DimaM, young locomotive assistant, June 5, 2003). Certainly, the union president was fully aware of such a fact, they even showed me there was no problem in using union funds to serve those who went into the ‘enemy’s arms’, though they more or less felt offended. More importantly, such a scene has been seen more and more often, but most RPLBZh primary organisations responded to such a fact on their own, dealing with their members’ demands and sticking with these at each depot. In the next chapter, I will present more details about the attitude of the members to the union and the union activists, to see the factors which lead to absence of effective organisation and solidarity, and discuss how much this is a failure of the activists to organise, and how much a failure of members / workers to respond.

2.3.4 Collective actions of RPLBZh

Since its formation, RPLBZh has continuously confronted different kinds of discrimination and pressure from the railway administration. Their union leaders or activists spent a lot of time on legal struggles for the recognition of the union organisation in their own railways, which include the legitimacy of union activity and granting the union an office. During the period 1993-1998, RPLBZh organisations were engaged in two basic categories of issues. Firstly, they were to defend members’ individual rights as well as the trade union’s right and status against the hostility of the administration. The issues related to workers’ individual rights were normally handled at primary organisation level by pursuing court cases. For events related to the union’s rights and status, primary or territorial organisation made their decision about what kind of action to take, and the central organ (i.e. the Russian committee or the executive committee) has taken either lobbying the ‘government’ or picketing at the MPS head office as the main methods to achieve their demands. Unlike its primary or territorial organisations, the union headquarters does not have to bear the pressure from the workplace administration, the task of the central office has always been to obtain recognition for negotiating, in their terms, a Professional Tariff Agreement. And that has always been rejected by the MPS authority. Secondly, RPLBZh tries to mobilise workers struggling to resist worsening working conditions. These actions, again, are normally undertaken by primary organisations without serious support either from the central office or from their brother organisations. That means there has been very little joint action targeting payment or working time, although such concerns were the reason why RPLBZh was formed. From 1992 forwards there have only been a few joint actions, and these were considered as interregional events. During the past ten years, the members went on several strikes, as well as numerous pickets and litigation. Most of these actions, nevertheless, were conducted separately by local organisations. Each depot organisation is usually only involved in actions targeting their own problems. Although the leaders knew, and called the frequent discrimination of the administration ‘systemic violations’ of Russian laws concerning union rights and the virtue of collective agreement regulation, outsiders were not expected to participate in their local actions. The background of these actions will indicate the evolution of the union’s concerns.

• 
  The 1998 August strike: falling apart from early militancy
  

The 1998 strike is probably one of the most notable events among all RPLBZh collective actions. Its significance arises from two facts: firstly, one should note that RPLBZh was actually a ‘national’ trade union which essentially acted on the Moscow and the October Railway; secondly, the strike experience for drivers on both the Moscow and the October Railway had a very strong effect on RPLBZh activity and its further development, as well as on the memory of its members. In total, there were 1,300 train drivers from eight depots (TO RPLBZh OZhD had eight primary organisations at that time) who participated in the strike action during 4-14 August 1998, about 10 % of the total brigade workforce of October Railway. The strike action certainly made an impact on the October Railway: long-distance passenger routes, cargo services and especially commuter services all saw cancellations. The reason for the strike was firstly derived from the OZhD administration’s rejection of the draft collective agreement produced by TO RPLBZh OZhD at the end of 1997. The case was then put to an arbitration commission from March 1998. However, the two sides still failed to complete the negotiation. Thus TO RPLBZh OZhD threatened to call a strike. The administration insisted this was a dispute over the collective agreement and collective rights, and according to the law, a work stoppage over the collective agreement is not allowed in the railway sector. RPLBZh activists carefully considered the defence of their own position and the action taking place. The strategy was to take action on the basis of the violation of individual labour rights. So that during the strike period, RPLBZh leaders asserted the action was initiated by wage arrears and related to the hard working conditions of train drivers. According to one of the leaders, the reason for this action was the non-observance of workers’ rights, with their monthly wages paid with long delays, some of the wages and allowances systematically not paid and other violations. They put the slogan for the strike as ‘In defence of the labour rights of individual workers’.

The decision to take strike action was coordinated with their colleagues on the Moscow Railway. In fact, the strike action was called with a parallel development on both Moscow and October Railways. In June, the Territorial Organization of RPLBZh Moscow Railway had informed TO RPLBZh OZhD that they would take coordinated collective action at the same time as the October Railway drivers were taking collective action. On August 4 these train drivers of Moscow Railway also went on strike.  The local action started at midnight with the demand ‘Against the violation of the rights of employees of the Moscow Railway’. The strike began at the engine depot in Uzlovaya, Tula Region. It was joined by three other depots in Moscow and the near environs. The strikers declared the action will continue, ‘until talks begin between the union and the Moscow Railway department’. The response of the MPS to the strikers was negative, declaring the strikers’ demands were nonsense. According to the press-release of MPS, the railway administration accused these strikers of wanting to have a microwave, ice-box, and air-conditioner which MPS was not able to provide because of lower labour and economic performance. The strike was ruled illegal and the strike action stopped together with their October Railway colleagues.

The key initiators and organisers were members of the presidium of TO RPLBZh OZhD. Boris Kharitonov, Aleksandr Zamyatin and Vitali Zhyutikov were the main organisers, while no strike committee was established. The message was published in the organisational newspaper ‘Gudosha’, with a module for members to make a formal statement to the administration. All the leaders of primary organisations met and confirmed their action would take place at the same time when the agreed date came. Participants said, ‘We used the method learned from Italy; we did not really refuse to work’, thus there is no necessity to form an easy-targeted strike committee. During this strike, they did not encourage workers from other professions to join the engine drivers’ strike. The strike took place more actively at two of the depots which were outside St Petersburg city, where Kharistonov worked. After the public prosecutor judged the strike was illegal, the strike was immediately crushed by the administration. The administration successfully imposed a ‘stick and carrot’ policy: on the one hand, they kept a tough position in relation to the strike with the backing of the transport prosecutor; and on the other hand they told drivers that if they came back to work, or left RPLBZh and rejoined ROSPROFZhEL, they would still have their accrued social benefits and even more chance to get promotion of their driver class.

The primary organisations immediately suffered from the defeat of the strike action. In both of the two depots trade union activists said that the real aftermath of the strike was that they suffered from a sharp fall in their membership. For example, there were 102 RPLBZh members before the strike at depot TCh-8 (in total there were 264 drivers and their assistants there), but after the strike the number sharply fell to about 35. Furthermore, the leader of the union committee of TCh-12 was sacked and did not win his suit to resist the order, while other members were also sacked but won their cases to return to their original posts. Not surprisingly, it is not easy to say how much the strike experience frustrated RPLBZh and its future strategy. The bad result, however, persuaded RPLBZh to try not to emphasise the event in more detail.

Although participants reviewed it, ‘There were of course mistakes during the strike. Although we got though this strike, we also realized the strike act had to be fully prepared for a successful outcome’ (YuryE, active member of TCh-9, May 28, 2003). Yet through the practice of these means of industrial action, there has been confusion among the union activists over the most effective means of putting pressure on the administration.⁷⁵ The confusion also derived from many leaders or members being immediately sacked or demoted to lower posts by the depot chiefs and even its weak membership was shaken by such an attack. Normally, the strongest attack of the administration was against the primary organisations where the membership was weak, so that also caused different estimations and considerations among RPLBZh activists. The leader of TO RPLBZh OZhD believes they should find a new method of putting pressure instead of going on strike or protests. As he argued, the reasons were simple: firstly, most workers did not commit themselves to radical actions; secondly, normal people are not interested in why they conduct such actions; thirdly, they would not be effective unless the activists are ready to spend a long time preparing such actions. Nevertheless, unlike the cautious attitude of RPLBZh activists of OZhD, in his interview with journalists, Kulikov insisted that for his trade union ‘work to rule and strike are still the most effective means’ (Gorn, 2003, p.256).

• 
  Campaign against the reform programme
  

From 2001, the Ministry of Railway Transport started to introduce the reform programme of the Russian railway system. As we have seen, the whole railway sector in Russia is enormous, and there is no private company running the railway so far, although some service and repair works has already been taken apart for private companies. RPLBZh, though it considers that reform is necessary, believes that the real attempt of the Russian government is to privatise the Russian railway system. At least as early as 1997, RPLBZh had noticed the government’s structural reform programme, and criticised the future privatisation of the Russian railway system. The union has been concerned that railway privatisation will make their working conditions even worse and there will also be a massive redundancy for railway workers, even locomotive drivers will no longer enjoy their relatively high status, and that of course will more likely weaken their bargaining position with the administration. The latest issue for RPLBZh has been that of what kind of action they should take to prevent the ongoing project of the privatization of railroad operation. Since 2001, RPLBZh has tried to call several protests and pickets to start its new search for a practical strategy.⁷⁶ They also conducted several local and international conferences to voice their opposition to the potential railway privatisation. In November 2001, European delegations met in St Petersburg to share their experience of railway privatisation, and RPLBZh also attended the meeting. Several activists were elected onto the International committee ‘Against railway privatisation’. In October 2003, another international conference was held in Moscow region. The conference, however, was not as successful as RPLBZh expected, due to the internal conflict between RPLBZh and KSP OZhD. And their contact with the European organisation of railway workers was also affected by the same conflict. More details about the reasons for this conflict will be presented in the next chapter.

These actions, anyhow, did not attract much attention from the public, not even their ordinary members. Most of their actions were more like lonely pickets in a form in which the RPLBZh activists were declaring their final opposition to the inevitable result of the government’s reform programme. Take the example of the picket on October 10 2002, which was eventually a joint action of RPLBZh that took place not only in Moscow but also in other cities nationwide. About 30-40 railway workers and local left-wing activists participated in the picket in St Petersburg. The aim of this action was put on their website but the concrete demands of the appeal in practice were not very clear. The preparation for the action, again, was simple, without any serious mobilisation. According to the organisers of this meeting, they wanted to set up a ‘message’ in the first place, a message to deliver to the city government and members of the city legislature to show workers’ objections to railway privatisation. Two city deputies passed by and took the action appeal, one of them also put his signature on the list; the other one refused. The deputy promised to come out later but the promise just became a bubble in the air. Since then, RPLBZh shifted their effort mainly to holding a conference in 2004.

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: