Russia’s ‘New Wave’ of Organizing

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/04/18/russias-new-wave-of-organizing/

Russia’s ‘New Wave’ of Organizing

Thanks to Tim Ryan and Lyuba Frenkel of the Solidarity Center for this diary of their trip to St. Petersburg, Russia, where there is a new wave of union organizing, especially among young workers.

April 11: The train pulls out of the Moscow railway station en route to St. Petersburg, just after midnight. We’re on this overnight train with Boris Kravchenko, president of the All Russia Confederation of Labor (VKT), the independent union federation. We’re planning on meeting and training young leaders of the new wave of union organizing in Russia.

Kravchenko told us:

This is the beginning of the movement. All of Russia was watching the Ford strike. All of St. Petersburg was mesmerized by this. People from other places, like Moscow and the Urals, were looking to this strike.

In February, union workers struck at the Ford Motor Co. plant in St. Petersburg and stopped management’s plan to “outsource” work and turn a significant part of the workforce into contract workers.

St. Petersburg is a hotbed of union activity, especially in multinational companies like Ford and Heineken. Workers also are organizing in central Russia, where striking workers at General Motors Corp. succeeded in replacing their manager.


Lena, a postal worker in St. Petersburg, is one of a new wave of union members in Russia.

But the action is really heating up in St. Petersburg. It’s a barometer of future union activity in Russia. More than that, this is a key moment for ordinary citizens who are trying to challenge a government increasingly intent on cracking down on freedom of speech, freedom of association and workers’ rights. Autoworkers, rubber workers, food workers, postal workers—they’re all on the move, and everyone agrees it’s a younger generation carrying the union torch forward.

The people of St. Petersburg take pride in having been at the forefront of labor, political and social activism in Russia for centuries. Although they face harassment, intimidation, physical threats, arrests and detention, they are not backing down.

FULL story at link.