Lenin mine, Mezhdurechensk Lyudmilla L. Mal’tseva, Konstantin V. Burnishev, Olga N. Pulyaeva

The Lenin mine is located in the southern part of the Tom'-Usinsk coal region of Kuzbass, on the right bank of the river Ol’zheras in the foothills of the Altai mountains. Administratively it is located in the city of Mezhdurechensk in Kemerovo oblast, which was built together with the mine. Its development had a rich history.

‘This is the only mine in Kuzbass bearing the name of the great leader, a name won in shock work and awarded for great achievements in the competitions in honour of the 100th anniversary of the birth of V.I. Lenin' (A. Reshto, Lenin Mine, 1983, p. 3).

At present the mine is the second largest in the city after Raspadskaya. Organisationally it is a member of the Concern Kuznetskugol' (Novokuznetsk).

The construction of the mine was begun at the end of 1948, and in 1953 the mine went into production as the Tomusinskaya 1-2 mine, with a planned capacity of 2.4 million tonnes of coal a year. The mine soon exceeded its planned capacity, becoming the largest mine in Kuzbass, with an annual output of 3 million tonnes. The mine was re-equipped with mechanised complexes and hydraulic supports in the 1970s, giving each long-wall face a capacity of between 500,000 and one million tonnes per year, and the mine as a whole a capacity of four million tonnes of coking coal. The mine is dangerous. It comes into the third category in terms of gas, with the risk of explosion, and its biggest seams are liable to spontaneous combustion. Water has to be extracted at an average of 700 cubic metres an hour. The coal is grade K-10. The thicker seams are gently sloping.

Lenin mine was the traditional proving ground for management, technical and Party personnel for the city and for South Kuzbass as a whole. The mine constructed a large social and welfare apparatus, and had extensive subsidiary agricultural activities. It is still the second largest deep mine, in terms of output, in Russia, following the neighbouring Raspadskaya.

Strikes from wm bookReports of a strike in 1960. And a riot soon after the war with a lot of deaths. Lenin had been one of the first mines to strike in 1989, with a strike of one esction over wages in February. On 3 April there was a second strike at the Lenin mine in Mezhdurechensk when one brigade of miners stopped work and refused to come to the surface, demanding increased bonuses and a reduction in the number of engineering-technical staff (ITR) in the mine. Lenin immediately joined th strike in July, following Shevyakova. The leader of the militant wing of the workers’ commitee, which did not want to call off the strike, was Valentin Mikhailovich Sorokopudov, a mine engineer from Lenin mine. In the scandal over the citry workers’ committee in 1990-91 it was a new president was drafted in, Yurii Kasimov, president of the Lenin Mine Workers’ Committee, to clean up the city committee. Kasimov was a member of the city soviet. He was originally a rigger, but was then appointed deputy director for supply of Lenin mine – an alternative variant of the corruption of activists

after the august 1991 putsch The director of Lenin mine, Golubkin, came to the mine and ordered the workers to stop work, which they had already done, telling them that if the putsch succeeded they would lose all the freedom they had gained, including all their new contracts, so there would be no point in working.

July 1992 disillusioned with city workers committee. On our visit Valerii Pavlikov, a member of the city workers’ committee from Lenin mine summed up the mood:

goddamit we lose a lot of money every month, I lose at least 20,000 roubles a year, and Pavlov [Lev Pavlov, chair of the city committee] even more because the miners at Mezhdurechensk last month received 14,000 and Pavlov only 8,000. We have a lot of trouble at home, and our wives are insulted too. i Yesterday we went to the oblast workers’ committee. We got up at 5 o’clock and got back at 9 o’clock in the evening and wasted a lot of time. That is why perhaps in the near future we will say fuck it and leave.

March 1993 strike Lenin was the only mine outside Prokopevsk actually to stop production.

Mikhail Naidov had had a switchback career – from First secretary of the Kiselevsk city Party committee, to director of a mine in Kemerovo, then head of the Kuzbass Mine Construction Kombinat, where he fell out with the deputy minister in Moscow and asked to be transferred back to a mine, being sent to Mezhdurechensk as director of the Lenin mine which, according to local legend, he transformed from a clapped-out pit on the brink of closure to one of the most prosperous in the branch, with a large social and welfare apparatus developed by Naidov, the pit being rewarded with the Order of Lenin, while Naidov was transferred to the most difficult job in the industry, as General Director of Prokop’evskugol’, which he, with Shchadov’s support, transformed into the Scientific Production Association Prokop’evskgidrougol’. Naidov had a reputation as a man who always worked in the interests of the workers, and this had brought him trouble with superiors, but also enabled him to bounce back. Naidov was the man to bridge the gap between Shchadov and the workers, and although he did not in fact come to Mezhdurechensk, which would have been very provocative in the eyes of Yuzhkuzbassugol’, he was to play a crucial role in the resolution of the strike across Kuzbass (Kostyukovskii, 38–40). Naidov became chairman of the oblast executive committee after the March 1990 elections, resigning in January 1991 to become General Director of Kuzbassimpex, a privatized export–import concern (Nasha gazeta, 4 January 1991).

Two mine directors, of Lenin in Mezhdurechensk and Seventh November were threatened with the sack by Malyshev because of the participation of their mines in the strike, provoking a strong response from NPG (Nasha gazeta, 6 March 1993). The strike in Lenin is interesting because a small number of NPG activists led a strike of overwhelmingly NPRUP members. Olga Pulyaeva and Kostya Burnishev observed the strike in Lenin. . According to NPG they had 560 members by the beginning of March. The mine administration gave them every help and support.

Lenin mine had voted 95 per cent in favour of the strike in the referendum, with 240 NPG members and 307 NPRUP members voting out of the

3,500 employees (2,550 underground workers). NPG had grown in Lenin over the first two months of 1993, and the director had provided it with an office on the second floor of the administration building for the president and bookkeeper, a safe and a telephone and arranged to check off its membership dues, all increasing the union’s authority in the mine.The strike was called by the executive of the executive of NPG meeting in Prokopevsk 26 January 1993. The basic demands, as far as Lenin NPG President was concerned, were 1) the right to manage social secturity 2) protest against the President’s decree restricting the choice of methods of privatisation available to the mines. This did not affect Lenin ,since it had already decided to privatise by the first variant, permitted to mines, but they decided to strike out of solidarity with the other mines. When the strike was announced the NPG leaders had long discussions with the director about their general demands and they worked out various problems together which NPG could press in its negotiations with the government. In relation to the strike itself NPRUP and the management adopted a neutral position.

On the morning of the strike, 1 March, NPG activists visited each section at 6.30 a.m. and all the workers of the first shift assembled in the vestibule of the mine administration building , where the NPG President explained the purpose of the strike. The miners then met in their sections, where they all voted to join the strike to elect representatives for the strike committee (there were only five people left on the old committee). The shop chiefs, having given the day’s orders, did not impede this process, although they were in a quandry. After this there was a general shift meeting once more to discuss the form of the strike, and it was decided to have a complete stoppage, with no production nor even anyone going down the mine, except for urgent work by permission of the strike committee. People were also told how to register their presence and where to be during the strike.The main demands were , for the government to sign the variant of the tariff agreement drawn up by NPG, the issue of social security, and the prevarication of the government in the negotiations.At eight in the morning the regular weekly telephone conference of mine directors took place, and the Lenin director discovered that his was the only mine in the concern on full strike, with nobody going down the mine. There was no discussion of the strike or the workers’ demands at the conference. After the conference the director joined the strike committee in the information hall. At 12.30 the second shift arrived and the meeting overflowed out of the building. After discussions the second shift confirmed the decision of the first shift. During the meetings a series of specific demands arose against the mine administration, including cuts in the managerial apparatus, complaints against specific managers, demand for free food in the canteen, and the payment of wages in cash and on time. The strikers were kept informed all the time by means of their section notice boards. At 15.00 a fax arrived from Kemerovo, through the city committee, calling off the strike. The end of the strike was announced over the loudspeaker system, and the second shift went down the mine, the NPG President himself chasing up about 20 people who had sneaked off. There were unverified reports that the director had decided to increase basic rates in the mine by 1.9 times.

economic development of the mine In 1992 the productive capacity was fixed at 1.8 million tonnes, in connection with the lagging behind of the reconstruction of the mine and the separation of open-cast (?) work. Reconstruction is a long-drawn out process whose tempo had slowed down in the last 2-3 years.

The coal has an ash content of 17-19%. This can be reduced by the Tomusinsk enrichment factory, which was built at the same time as the mine, but with existing technology this can only reduce it to around 9%, while the maximum required for export is 7.5% (??). Neverthelss the mine exports to Rumania, and supplies coking coal to Novolipetsk, Chelyabinsk, Magnitogorsk and the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Combines.

At present it has the largest value of fixed assets of all the mines in the concern.

The largest volume extracted was in 1987 - 2690 thousand tonnes. In 1991 extraction was 1.8 million tonnes (see table 1 - production figures 1986--91 - big fall in 1991. Big falls in preparatory work in 1990 and 1991 too.).

Collapse of the ministerial system meant that the mine became a relatively closed system, not very vulnerable to external influences, with a much higher degree of independence. A difficult financial situation arose in the summer of 1992 as a result of the non-payment by consumers of coal. In the summer of 1992 they began to receive barter goods for coal, exported at the end of 1991, that somewhat reduced the social tension in relation to the delays in the payment of wages as a result of the absence of money. But apart from this, the position through 1992 was relatively stable.

Coal Production Preparatory WorkYear Thousand tonnes Metres1986 25991987 2691 233931988 2418 240521989 2560 231611990 2336 192731991 1827 154801992 2057 156161993 1467 12222

24062 metres of preparatory work were carried out in 1988, but only 15480 metres in 1991. This is one of the basic production indicators that characterises the work of the mine in the long term.

May 1993, Lenin had 2 billion debts to suppliers, and decided to build up their debts on the assumption that it would be written off in the end.By June 1993 the mine had difficulty with fulfilling the plan. According to the director the mine deliberately reduced production in the first quarter to create a reserve of circulating funds. Payment and budget subsidies were received, even if one or two months late, so that the financial position of the mine was fairly stable.

April plan fulfilment only 70%, and May was no better. The deputy for production delcared `Such a low level of extraction has not been seen, apart from the months of the strikes, since the foundation of the mine’. The only thing that kept its head above water was its foreign trade, for which it received 2 million dollars from January to April, so that in April May it got 1.3 billion roubles, which enabled it to pay off its bank debts of 800 million. Export was based on direct links established by the director, without the mediation of Kuznetskugol.

The mine has reserves for a further fifty years, but it is soon due for a major reconstruction. The first stage of this reconstruction needs equipment costing 53 billion roubles and will take four years. Without such reconstruction the mine will have exhausted its accessible reserves in four or five years. The mine should have received 700 million for capital investment for the first half of 1993, but received nothing, by which time the denbt to the contractors was half a billion roubles. A commission was supposed to arrive to consider these issues from Rosugol’ in September 1993, but has still not come.

concernDuring 1992 Kuznetskugol had problems of non-payment so that stocks of coal increased. 1993 first quarter more stable situation. However the end of winter brought problems in the second quarter. 13 April 1993 Eltsin visited Novokuznetsk and met represeantatives of mine collectives, trade unions and workers’ committees, meeting in Abashevskaya mine, whose director V.G. Lavrik, president of the council of Kuznetskugol’ was very active. Lavrik in his speech stressed four problems: 1) freeing the price of coal: subsidies humiliate the miners, do not cover production costs, do not promote the growth of labour productivity 2) customs privilegeds for foreign trade activities of coal enterprsies 3) privatisation 4) criminality. The answers given in discussion were 1) coal price will not be freed, but subsidies will be increased and they will be paid quarterly in advance. 2) customs privileges is a legitimate request and the necessary legislation will be prepared 3) a packet of documents is almost prepared `with a brightly expressed social bias’. At the very end of the meeting Lvrik promised Eltsin their support in the referendum and asked for 38% of state shareholding to be transferred to Kuznetskugol’ on privatisation. By way of an exception and an experiment this was authorised. (See also newspaper reports). Yevtushenko, Malyshev and Shafranik promised that subsidies would continue to all mines, but the principles of distribution were still being worked out. The same day Sharfranik met the same group of people in the offices of the company. He stressed that the country needed coal and its production should be increased; that depending on the results of the referendum the subsidy would be paid in May; that by the middle of June the mechanism for coal enterprises’ earning money would be defined; there should not even be any talk of mass layoffs in connection with mine closures; a programme to reolve all the industry’s problems is almost ready. He assured them that there would be no closures where there was no alternative employment.

Meeting with Shafranik:Nekrasov invited mine directors to explain their problems to the government.Lavrik: Last year was a fairly successful one for coal enterprises and around the end of the third quarter there was some hope that the position had stabilised and was

beginning to improve. But since the fourth quarter last year tehre has been virtual stagnation in the industry, not in its work but in the economic management of the branch. Practically all the connected branches have moved to free prices and they change their prices every week, while the coal industry retains fixed constant prices, and that is where all the problems begin. Our request for free prices is not supported by the leaders of the industry, nor do they provide support on any other level. It was decided to subsidise the coal industry and give it subsidies and a tariff agreement. Such a decision was taken regarding the first quarter but only signed at the end of the quarter, at the end of March, and we received the subsidy three months later, eroded by inflation. The money we received for capital construction under the tariff agreement has covered only 60% of our coal company’s costs. It is now 12th April (??13th above) and we have received nothing, we have only debts, which arise because, for example, in my mine the accounting price with subsidies and with the tariff agreement is abour 5700, but expenses are around 5900, so we are losing 100 roubles on every tonne. As a result of the delay in all these payments we have to borrow and pay interest on the loan, so that we now owe about half a billion roubles. We simply do not know how we can go on living in this situation. I appeal again to the leaders of the industry and the government, either to give us an adequate subsidy paid on time or allow us to resolve these problems ourselves. Moreover, the subsidy is not enough for our needs, but today nobody is in a position to pay any more. Although we produce coal, we have become like teachers and medical workers, dependent on budget handouts, on each tonne we earn 1600 from consumers and 4000 from the government. These matters must be resolved immediately because we cannot go on living like this.2. Issue of privatisation: we want the controlling packet vested in Rosugol’. We have managed our industry here for the past three years, so we need the shares here. Another matter is relations with local authorities: we are required to transfer sotskultbyt to local authorities. We try to oppose this, but meet with no understanding on their part. Intervention is necesssary here too, or the miners will simply lose these objects. We built them but we no longer own them.

19 April meeting of shareholders of Kuznetskugol’ decided to stop deliveries to coal consumers and recommended mines and treatment plants to begin preparatory work for a stoppage of their enterprises on June 1st. Only Lenin mine voted against this, believing it would weaken their financial position (held up by good export revenues). (The founders of the AO Kuznetskugol’ are the mines and related coal enterprises of South Kuzbass, votes proportional to contribution to founding capital, with Lenin mine the largest. Directors of mines, STK and trade union presidents participated in the shareholders’ meeting).

Commentary of General Director of Kuznetskugol’ in interview in Kuznetskii Rabochii, 27.05.93. `President B.N. Yeltsin declared at this recent meeting with the Kuzbasss miners in Novokuznetskthat it is impossible to free the price of coal, that the state will subsidise the branch taking account of the needs of coal enterprises, including not only production costs, but also expenditure for capital construction and the support of the social sphere.Moreover he promised that the subsidy will be paid quarterly in advance. That is, let us say, in April we should receive 18 billion roubles for all the subsidies for the second quarter. And what has happened? Up to the end of May only five billion roubles have been transferred from the federal budget, which was not enough even to

cover the prime debts and wage payments. Many miners have still not received their wages for March. The company owes more than five billion to the railways,and the debt is growing by more than 100 million a day. Why? Because the Russian government decided to increase the rail tariff for freight by 2.2 times and to impose a fine of two per cent of the outstanding debt per day’s delay in repayment. This resolution has led the coal miners into a complete financial crash. Now it costs us 3-4 times more to produce a tonne of coal than the wholesale price our customers pay us for this tonne.Any sane person can understand that there is no sense in extracting coal at a loss. Only 15 per cent of the wholesale price of the coal now goes to cover the expenses of the miners.’ The decision to stop work is aimed at putting pressure on the federal authorities, The basic demands are: prompt payment of subsidy; reversal of the decision of the government to raise rail tariffs and impose fines; if the federal budget cannot provide an adequate subsidy to the industry, then the government should publish a decree on price policy which will allow the industry to survive in market conditions. The decision of the government to free oil prices poured oil on the fire. The economics director of Kuznetskugol’, V.F. Iorikh commented: `We, the miners, were ready to move to free prices at the beginning of the year, not later than February. Then the price of coal concentrate would not have increased by more than three times. But now, if we base it on the real cost of extraction and transportation of coal, it could jump up as high as ten times. This means that now we are not going to leave the table with crumbs, we will not refuse a subsidy.In February, when we explained this miscalculation of the situation the government did not understand us. They said to us, `you work, we will feed you till you are full’. But it did not happen. The railways raised their freight tariffs, customers do not pay for their coal. We have never experienced such a crisis before …In the coal company they still do not know what Moscow will decide. In any case, with or without the freeing of prices, we are unlikely to be able to get by in the future without the closure of a number of small unprofitable mines. Everything indicates that we are now producing more coal than is needed. It is hardly likely that the whole `caravan’, the whole of the present structure of the coal complex, will be able to get through the present crisis intact. It needs serious restructuring. Now in places they are sending the miners on their two monthly holidays at the time most profitable for them, the summer’. (Kuznetskii rabochii, 20.05.93).Yu.N. Malyshev, speaking at the meeting, could not say anything encouraging. He only promised that he would pute everything to Prime Minister Chernomyrdin. But his words were received sceptically: nobody believes anybody’s promises any more. It was at precisely this point that the idea of stopping coal deliveries was proposed. Malyshev asked those present not to rush into making such a decision, until the government circles take appropriate measures (Vremya i zhizn’, 3.06.93).There was no reaction from Moscow before 1 June. Shipment of coal to customers, apart from those of fuel for municipal needs and those under contract to foreign customers, was stopped. According to the preliminary data coal production in the company’s mines fell by 40 per cent. For example at Abashevskaya all production and shipment ceased and 3,000 miners were sent on leave.The trade unions did not take any position at the shareholders’ meeting. There was the impression that they were not ready for such a turn of events. Their basic position, expressed in their speeches, was 1) Incompetence of the leaders (this point was hardly appropriate, since the position of the chiefs of the AO was fairly well thought out and argued) 2) violation of the tariff agreement (readdressed to the Russian government).

`The trade unions assessed the situation which had arisen in the region. Thus, the Novokuznetsk territorial council of NPRUP addressed an open letter to the President, chairman of the supreme soviet and head of the government which said, in particular: `The short-sighted price policy for coal production, the sharp increase in railway tariffs and penal sanctions since April 1 1993 have brought coal-producing enterprises to a state of bankruptcy and forced their stopping production.’ The meeting of represetnatives of NPG Russia also put forward its demands, such as that the President has to fufill the promises that he made during his visit to Novokuznetsk.Both trade unions expressed their concern that the distribution of subsidy takes place with considerable delay, which impedes the fulfilment of the general tariff agreement. The NPG leaders view such a state of affairs as an act of pressure of the government on the general directors of joint-stock companies to force them to close unprofitable mines as rapidly as possible. The suspension and complete cessation of coal production, in the opinion of some of the NPG leaders, will still further convince the ministry and government that the amount of coal extracted from the mines of Kuznetskugol’ is not needed.NPG also considers the change in railway tariffs as a part of the economic blockade: it is unprofitable to extract coal, and unprofitable to conclude barter deals. In the view of the NPG leaders there is only one possible conclusion to be drawn: the generals must work out a programme for the closure of unprofitable mines as rapidly as possible, only when such a programme is drawn up and approved by the government will the situation with the subsidies, the terms of whose transfer is unfortunately not stipulated in the general agreement, be clarified. At the moment commissions are coming to Kuzbass, chiefs of coal enterprises argue in search of a way out, the miners are sent on vacation. NPG has submitted a suit to the Proletarskii People’s Court in Moscow charging the leaders of executive power with failure to fulfill the general tariff agreement’ (Kuznetskii rabochii 5.06.93).

By beginning of 1993 wholesale price of coal covered only 15% of cost. July 1st coal price raised 2.5 times. Two weeks later the coal price was freed.

coal salesTo try to establish its independence Lenin tried to sell coal by direct agreement with enterprises and not go through Uglesbyt of Kuznetskugol’. But in middle of May 1992 energy prices began to rise, with a sharp jump in the accounting price of coal. The agreements worked out immediately lost all their sense since the factories were not going to agree to buy coal at that price. On July 1 the prices increased again, so that a tonne of coal cost 2,000. This put the mine in a difficult position as factories took coal but did not pay, the delay in payment reaching 2-3 months. By the end of the third quarter the accounting price of coal was 3,000 with subsidy. But then the coal price was unchanged while other prices surged ahead in 1993. The mine was not able to make direct agreements and fell back under the control of Uglesbyt. The price was not enough to pay wages and for the development of the enterprise. Thus Kuznetskugol’, despite the fixed price of coal, set the price of concentrate at 10,000 from the third quarter of 1993. The price increases were explained to the factories centrally, through Uglesbyt.Since it could not make deals direct with the factories, Lenin mine agreed to the fixed price, which was linked to promises of financing for the social sphere and capital

construction. From April 1993 the mine survived from currency receipts for coal sold in 1992. Selling about 50% of these enabled the mine to pay wages with only a small delay (2 weeks) and settle up with its creditors.With the freeing of the price on 1 July 1993 the price by the third quarter amounted to 18,000, 10,000 from factories and 8,000 from state budget - the share of the budget rose from 30% to 44%. In the summer, having sold enriched coal for 25,000 and using the subsidies the mine could exist normally, although it found it difficult to find buyers.From July 1993 the mine had to cease supplying coal for export since the Rumanian metallurgical factory had problems selling its metal, so that at the request of the intermediary shipments ceased. The situtation was aggravated by the increase in rail freight rates. Export was profitable when the cost price was 14,000 and it sold for 48 dollars, but now the cost of concentrate was 25,000 and the cost of exporting it was 22,000.In December 1993 Lenin entered negotiations with Kuznetskugol about leaving because Uglesbyt owed 5.5 billion roubles. In the end decided to stay and to continue to sell some of its coal through Uglesbyt. By spring 1994 financially up a dead end. By end 1993 the mine was owed 6.5 billion by contract organisatons and 3.5 billion from the budget. The mines position was adversely affected by delays in payment by customers and of subsidy, high railway rates, and the rigid tax system.

1994 direct sales resumed, with a contract to deliver 500 thousand tons to KMK, with partial prepayment and some other favourable features for the mine.

may 93. They have two or three people in Moscow who handle their export sales, independently of the concern. Mine directors share out the export allocations between themselves. The concern would like to take it back, but mines won’t let them.

Management problemsCentrifugal tendencies in management are strengthening, with a partial coincidence of interests of coal enterprise directors with municipal powers. Novokuznetsk produces 50% of the association’s coal from 10 mines, Osinniki 30% from 4 mines, Mezhdurechensk 20% from 4 mines.12 May a meeting was held in Osinniki to try to get the managers of the city’s mines to agree to the setting up of a new company Osinnikiugol’. 20 May the small soviet of the city adopted a resolution `In recent years the coal company Kuznetskugol’ has concentrated on the resolution of problems of consumer supplies?? (Snabzhenskoe-bytovi), distancing itself from the resolution of the problems of the technical reequipment of the mines and the development of the social sphere of the city of Osinniki. The leaders of the company arbitrarily reduce the accounting price of coal delivered by the Osinniki mines which aggravates the already difdficult financial and economic situation of these enterprises. The leaders of the company ignore the attempts of the administration of Osinniki to establish a business partnership.’ (Vremya i zhizn’, 3.06.93)The head of administration of Osinniki revealed his innermost thoughts in a newspaper interview: ` An economic assessment has shown that if such a company were to be formed in Osinniki, so that Uglesbyt was established here, and we kept the

proceeds from the sale of coal, then even at the prices of last year we would have one billion roubles. In my view that is not a bad amount of money for the city budget.’ [Uglesbyt is the organisation through which subsidies for the coal sold by the mines and various other payments are channeled; it is a subsidiary of Kuznetskugol and is based in Novokuznetsk, so it pays taxes to the Novokuznetsk city budget.] …`The most important thing for us just now is the speed of organising the creation of the coal company, because if we do not manage to do it by July, then there will be no financing for the company for 1994 and we will have to watr another year.And here I would like to add, that we have no aspiration to separatism, that is we will not separate off, we will remain within the framework of Rosugol’, but it is simply that the money will move to the city. The administration of the city is interested in creating an efficient new body’. (Vremya i zhizn’, 3.05.93) The main advantages they envisage are 1. The accounting price of coal will be established precisely here. 2. They will have their own coal selling agency and this will mean money for the mines and the taxation will go into the local city budget. 3. Technical reequipment of the mines and social and welfare development of the city and villages will be resolved locally.

May 1993: otdel kadrov now incorporated as information section into department of personnel management, alongside social department (responsible for social conflict and barter deals), Department of New Forms of Incentives (both latter headed by former development workers), all under a Deputy Director.Commercial deparment separated off to a subsidiary enterprise, with social department handling distribution, but plan to change this again. Directors’ Council meets monthly.

Data from screen.cut

Number of employees YEAR 1987 3367 1988 3388 1989 3389 1990 3209 1991 3417

1992 3874 1993 c.3500

Average Monthly labour productivity of coal extraction YEAR 1987 87 1988 81 1989 87 1990 78 1991 64

1992 67

1993 48.1

Growth index (1987 = 100) YEAR production number of

employees productivity

1987 100 100 100 1988 90 99 93 1989 95 99 100 1990 87 95 90 1991 68 102 73 1992 76 115 77

Turnover of chiefs of underground sections YEAR number changed 1991 23 2 1992 15 10

Turnover of mine foremen YEAR changed 1991 109 9 1992 102 22

Number of apprentices YEAR 1987 104 1988 101 1989 1990 67 1991 36 1992 34

Turnover of Specialists

YEAR came left 1988 53 62

1992 207 125

Number of workers in basic production jobs

YEAR faceworkers developmen surface

t workers workers 1990 412 319 532 1991 397 299 562 1992 322 270 755

Turnover of workers in main production jobs (%) YEAR faceworkers development

1990 7 8 1991 7 13 1992 8 15

Absenteeism (people per shift) YEAR

1987 38 1988 41 1989 165 1990 334 1991 700 1992 1936

Numbers sacked for absenteeism YEAR 1990 36 1991 53 1992 122

Structural changes in the labour force YEAR category 1991 1992 1993 workers 2332 2487 2550 managers 253 265 | specialists 109 142 650 other 79 81 |

The highest productivity of labour in terms of coal extraction was in 1989, amounting to 87.4 tonnes of coal a month. In 1991 this indicator had fallen to 64.1 tonnes.

The number of underground workers amounted to 2550, the number of managers and specialists 650, the total number 3500. Labour turnover is on average 10.2%. The quantity of absences and absentees eloquently characterises the state of labour discipline in the mine in recent years:

1988 1989 1990 1991 absences (shifts)

41 165 334 723

absences (people)

21 47 76 99

sacked for absenteeism (people)

3 29 52 59

1992 saw an intensified disciplinary campaign on the part of management, with a big campaign against drunkeness in November, with seven times the monthly average for the year being sacked for the offence.

sotskultbytThe mine supports a large social sphere: Housing, kindergarten, cultiral centre, sports complex (stadium, sports hall, ski base), profilactory, hothouse centre, holiday base on the Azov Sea, land bought for 2 million roubles in 1992, 300 million spent on construction and a further 800 million required to finish it (spring 94). The Soviet of the enterprise decided 07.09.93 that its continued construction was a financial priority for the mine.Apart from support of objects of sotskultbyt, the mine sepnt in 1993 on social services for workers (million roubles):On the potato campaign (ploughing of land, delivery of crop from fields) 6.3transport for excursions, cultural and sporting events: 2.5provision of free coal:27.8provision of free false teeth: 4.2payment of holiday travel in accordance with tariff agreement: 14.5compensation for stolen items: .8financial assistance: 7.3compensation for cost of living in family hostels of outside organisations: 5.3interest free credit for education of workers’ children:5.2compensation for children of victims of industrial injury or illness (11 families): 3.3costs for treatment in self-financing polyclinics

in Mezhruchensk:1.9in Novokuznetsk: 1.3in Prokop’evsk:.2

Insurance firm ASCO: .6for medical examination of workers: 4.4pharmacy: .5Total expenditure: 79.2 million

Subsidiary activities1992 adopted strategy of diversifying the enterprise, making links with the successful enrichment plant at Myski and Metallurgical kombinat, but this led nowhere.

Attached to the mine the MP `Izpotugol', a factory for the rearing of nutria is organised. Took money back from the collectige farm, because they just stole everything delivered by the mine (see interview with Uvykhin).In the spring of 1993 the mine was co-founder (with Tomsk mine) of a joint stock company for the production of large bricks (building blocks), TOO Imidzh which was to be built at Myski. The administration of the mine and the STK wanted to persuade as many employees as possible to invest their own money in this company, the equipment for which had already been bought with the mine’s own money. The mine had already set up another subisidiary joint stock company, a mink farm in Altai Krai. At a shift meeting in the lamp room (20.4.93) the president of the STK tried to attract the workers to investing in the new company, point out that investment provided a good hedge against inflation, that the product would be in high demand since there were no competitors, that unlimited supplies of raw materials were available locally as a by-product of the sinter factory, and that dividends could be paid in the form of the products of the factory. The workers took a lively interest in this. Also bought land near Azov sea to build cottages and rest house - rumours of corruption.

By middle of 1993 this not working very well, and director did not know what to do.

Workers do not like commercial activity, nobody trusts anybody, think the director is looking after himself. 27% of barter goods go to the mines’ partners but workers don’t believe it when they see things being loaded up and taken away. May 93.

No information is released about all this commercial activity: credit from the mine, investments etc. Racketeers and security guards who are former racketeers make sure that no questions are asked at shareholders’ and trade union meetings.

Trade unions1992:The mine has two trade unions, an enterprise council (STK), and an active veterans' council. At the present time there are no sharp conflicts between the administration and social organisations. The trade union and the STK are not formally part of the administration, but their leaders form part of the director’s management team. The STK plays the role of the primary `legislator’ of the mine. It confirms the constantly changing regulations regarding pay, the distribution of hard currency receipts, barter goods etc. The chairman of STK is also chariman of the commission for privatisation of the mine. Recently 1992 STK, in person of its president has withdrawn from direct participation in the resolution of conflicts.The trade union does not differ from the administration on any issues of principle. Its basic function is to negotiate the collective agreement and monitor its implementation. The president of the trade union tries to get involved in the resolution of conflicts only in the most exceptional circumstances and at the first opportunity refers them to the Labour Disputes Commission (KTS). He was on holiday at the height of the conflict between the administration and section one and the shop trade union organisation did not show itself at all.

NPG was established in February 1991 with 30 members. By 1992 it had about 100 members. The chairman is not a free worker, and there is a bookkeeper. Its basic

work is the growth of numbers. It conducts active agitation in the collective. To attract attention it tries to oppose the administration, but at the moment there is not particular issue of opposition, so it concentrates on monitoring the distribution of barter goods and valyuta. The main attraction is individual medical accounts. The most active members are from the workers’ movement.

Both trade unions signed the 1992 collective agreement. There is no open conflict between the two organisations, but there is latent rivalry at the personal level.

1993 (see below) the NPG received support from the director, and on privatisation four NPG members became members of the enterprise council which replaced the STK, out of a total of eight members. NPG is most active in section 10 and in the transport section.

Official union budget for 1992: ???Total 6.62 millionleisure evenings: .24putevki to profilaktory: .33children’s putevki: .31sporting competition: .31financial assisatnce: .53

barter1992: The most significant activity of the trade union is its work in the distribution of barter goods. This is the real basis of its authority and its influence. Although a distribution commission was elected at the conference, this concerns itself with the global principles of distribution - this category of workers gets so much and this category gets so much etc. The individual lists are drawn up by the trade union committee. Moreover there is a view that barter is now a real level of management and so the weight of this or that manager or social activist is determined by the degree of his influence over the process of distribution. This is confirmed by the fact that the atmosphere of general enthusiasm for distributed goods considerably facilitated the administration’s taking a tough line with the first section. However, on the one hand, being able to separate and divide the unity of the workers’ action, on the other hand barter weakens their dependence on monetary incentives - reselling these goods is much more profitable than working well on production. Moreover, some of the workers get a kind of psychological revenge through this commercial activity: the ITR and managers have their own code of honour according to which they should not participate iopenly in such resale and receiving additional earnings.

Labour marketThe labour market position eased in 1992, in particular with the large scale lay-offs and transfers from Shevyakova. Early 1993 Shevyakova workers transferred to Tomsk and some to Lenin. Recruitment ceased in October 1992, with the exception of high skilled workers, and there were reduction s in numbers in both basoic and auxiliary sections. The workers were given the choice between taking immediate redundancy or being transferred to lower paid lower skilled work. As of November 1992 all took the latter option.

By 1994 the mine was losing its best workers so that some brigades in ochistnyi sections were 10 per cent short of workers. In March 1994 decided to create one more ochistnyi section. They needed 100 people, most of all need a brigade of development workers.

management

The composition of the administration is fairly stable. The present Director, M. V. Golubkin, was elected by the labour collective in 1991 on an alternative basis. He was a previous chief mechanic and very popular, but is not very good at solving problems. He is an authoritarian paternalist director, but much less conservative than most others in the concern. He tried to keep sotskultbyt on the books of the mine. He had worked for many years in the mine, and takes a fairly strict line in the management of production, and in the formation of his team. Attempts to modernise production and to diversify the productive structure do not always find a complete understanding among the workers. In the very first months of his leadership he replaced a huge bust of Lenin in the vestibule of the ABK with an information table. Management team reconstructed by him. Most of them from within the mine, but some from outside. Got rid of useless ones. For example, in November 1992 one of the sections was cut and it was decided that the ITR of the section would be demoted to workers. Plans to close other departments too. Section chiefs fed up with all his chopping and changing,

Management restructuring: 1) regular changes in structure, merging splitting and creating new departments, structural changes. This most connected with manaagerial politics. 2) creation of large management information system. 3) appraisal and training of management staff 4) personnel management service established 5) initiative groups to resolve problems 6) commercialisation of management, esp 92-3, with extensive barter exchange. 7) privatisation.

Administrative staff increasing as they need a lot of people to run computers introduced for their `automatic system of management’ (May93) which computerises all the information.

Introduction of regular apparaisal of mangement personnel and increasing qualifications of management.

Personnel strategy is that of `personnel pluralism’, so that, for example, the director invited one of the activists of the workers’ movement to become head of the so-called `social department’. Similarly initiative groups of people from various levels of management were formed to work out various issues, for example preparation of the production programme for 1993. Work of these groups regularly discussed by technical council of the mine.

The heads of production services have been very carefully and deliberately selected to embody the `strict’ side of the administration, so that the immediate anger of the employees is directed at them, which allows the director to present himself as the

arbitration court in the investigation of conflicts. This reinforces the image of the wise and fair chief.

Director has made a lot of enemies because nobody understands his decisions, and he won’t discuss them. He is supported by the deputy for production, head of capital building, chief engineer (at one time it was Fyodorov, night shift chief and former director of Shevyakova after Soroka, chief engineer May 1993 had been promoted from deputy for production but director not happy with his work and has problems dealing with department chiefs) and deputy for personnel (although she has little weight), but opposed by section chiefs he keeps changing. Deputy chief engineer is V.L. Soroka, former autocratic Shevyakova director removed after 1989 strike, often stands in for director when latter is away. There is also a young deputy chief engineer who came from Raspadskaya, and headed an initiative group set up in 1992 to analyse situation of the mine.

Golubkin left in August 1993, and the deputy for production, who had come second in the eelection of Golubkin in 1991, E. M. Tsyplaakov, was made acting director. It is very rare for mine directors to leave voluntarily, normally they are either promoted or removed for violations. The collective had a fairly jaundiced view of his deaprture: `he has done his business and now he has run away’. He was remembered for lots of business trips, spending a lot of time on commerce, and not much attending to production. K.S. Uvykhmin became deputy director for personnel questions. Managerial relationships have deteriorated. There is more tension between both trade union leaders and the mines social services: personnel management and social department, all of them coming from the workers’ movement (NPG head from the workers’ committee, PRUP head from the strike waves, head of social department is a former member of strike committee, deputy ditrector for personnel is head of STK.Also growing tension between staff and line management - section chiefs, particularly related to pay and the planning of work. The new director first tried a policy of carrots in relation to the section chiefs, but in his words this produced no results, so he soon began gradually to get rid of the most awkward.

Basic management strategy is to take strict measures to improve labour discipline and increase efficiency alongside strong paternalism.

SotskultbytThe director was paternalist and tried to keep it going. House building was maintained by roundabout ways, participating in the founding of a construction firm, transferring human resources and the building of individual houses by the workers themselves. 1992

Privatisation

Management was keen on privatisation to transform themselves into owners. There was an intensive publicity campaign in the mine newspaper and through meetings of the gfactgory privatisation commission wiht groups of worekrs. On 21st October 1991 a conference of the labour collective of the mine decided to apply for the privatisation of the mine and the creation of a shareholding company `Tomus'. The

request was entrusted to the Director of the mine. They chose the first variant of privilege - they receive part of the shares free.

One can estimate the role of the administration and social organisations in the process of privatisation from a short note in the factory newspaper of the mine `Tomusinskii gornyak' of 23 October 1991 `STK meeting':

`Last week a joint meeting of the STK and Profkom on the process of privatisation was held.

The Diretor of the mine M.V. Golubkin spoke at it. He explained at length and in detail, what is shareholding, shares, privatisation and what is necessary for it, and also answered questions for those interested.

Then came the decision to select the form of privileged variant of privatisation. For this questionaires were given out by section and subdidivision, which each person had to fill in by name, and the task of the members of the STK and profkom was to carry out the explanatory work and speed up the investigation.' The papers were sent to the Russian government before the 7th Congress.

Decision eventually came through from Kemerovo oblast state property committee on 25.08.93. Founding capital 1685.586 million roubles. Ropsugol’ has 35% , of which 10% reserved for FAPR, 22% hekd by Kuznetskugol’, 3% for workers of VGSCh and middle levels of Kuznetskugol’.

This decision was met without enthusiasm in the mine. The director is not much interested. He thinks the only purpose of privatisation was to secure independence, which they have got anyway, so it really makes no difference. The main issue is the distribution of privileged shares, as indicated by the fact that the privatisation commission was headed by the deputy director for personnel/head of STK. Only about 400 people expressed any interst in buying shares, of whom 80 were managers and specialists, but none of the senior staff applied.

CONDITIONS OF CLOSED SIGNATURE TO SIMPLE SHARES IN THE OPEN SHARE HOLDER SOCIETY LENINA MINE The signiture for shares is closed. Closed signiture meanes theprivileged possibility for the workers to buy simple shares.There is30 % reduce of the nominal price of the share and the workers can payfor it in 3 year period.The first payment constitutes 15% of the wholeprice of the share. The privatization comission is performing this signiture. The right to take part in closed signiture have:1.The workers of the mine ( auxilary and non-industrial group(healthcare,catering) are also included). 2.Those,who doesn't work at themoment in the mine but have the right to return-solgiers,students.3.Pensioneers 4.Those who worked in the mine 10 year (men), or 7,5years (women). 5.Those who were dismissed during stuff reduction after1-st January 1992 and are registered as unimployed. PRICE Each share distributed according closed signiture costs its

nominal price multiplied to the coefficient 0,7. Nominal price of 1share is 1000 rub.So the sell price is700 roubles. Total number ofshares distributed according to closed signiture is 16859. THE CONDITIONS OF THE CLOSED SIGNITURE 15 days after publishing an announcement about closed signiturethose who have the right for it can make a demand.These demandes areregistered by privatization comission. The number of demands must notbe more then 843 shares (5% of the total number of shares) When the signiture is over the Comissiom counts the total numberof demands and distribute shares among those who took part in thesigniture. If the total number of demands is less then the number of shareseverybody gets the number of shares he wanted. If the total numer of demands exceeds share's total number,eachmember of closed signiture gets 1 share and additional number ofshares which is defined according to the formula A * B/C where A- the demanded number of shares B- number of shares which were left after distribution (1share per person) C- total number of demandsthat was left after this distribution DISTRIBUTION OF PREVILIGED SHARES In accordance to the "State programm of privatization in1992" all members of the enterprice have the right for privilaged(non-voting) shares (type A)(they don't pay for it), which constitute25% of charter (statutory) The right for these shares have the same categories as inprevious case DISTRIBUTION OF PREVILEGED SHARES All members of the Labour Collective are distributed intogroups according to the coefficient of meaning (importance): coefficient1 group- underground personel 1,22 - surface industrial personal 1,03 - invalid of labours (disabled persons) 0,94 - pensioniers 0,6 Then the shares are distributed inside the grousaccordingto the formula: K*T T-number of years he worked in the mine K-coeffiicient,which considers the number of shares,that constitute to 1 year of work in mine. The desition to get privatized was met withoutenthusiasm.Only about 400 people signed for simple shares, 80 of themare managers and specialists. Practically non of top managers signedfor simple shares. An interesting case took place.When the desition of privatisationwas published in the local newpaper, the new director has not allowedto distribute it.

Personnel problems

Our group was invited as consultants in the sphere of personnel management. One of the basic directions of the work is social-production conflict in primary labour collectives in the mine. Through studying them we run into a number of general problems of the mine, in the background of which develop relations in the production process. Interpreting them with the position of middle level managers in the mine (chiefs of shops, departments, services) as follows:

planning

The first problem - the planning of the quantity of work in the section. This constantly causes psychological tenson in the section between the chief of section and collection, on the one hand, and between section chiefs and mine management, on the other. The indeterminacy and limited information of the collective - only at the very last moment do the conditions of agreement become known. Mutual suspicion arises over the non-observance of the agreement.

Section chiefs

The second problem - the unstable authority of the section chief in the system of interrelations. Breaches of subordination when the brigadier goes over the head of the section chief etc, does not make for a unity of direction at various levels of management, and does not strengthen the confidence in his position of the leader of the section.

There is tension between section management and higher management. IN conflicts with workers the section chief finds himself in the middle, thus in conflict in section one the section ITR found themselves playing the role of buffer between the mine management and the section collective. Typical attitude was that of the new chief of section one in conversation with us: ‘The second floor pressed like that and they will always press like that, and that does not depend on who is there, whether they are good or bad. I myself, if I found myself there, would certainly behave in exactly the same way.’ This leads to mutual recriminations, on the one hand for the incompetence of managerial decisions, technical errors, incorrect plans etc. On the other hand, the absence of exectuvie and technological discipline, low skill etc. The usual way of resolving these conflicts is to get rid of the head of the section management, i.e. at a critical moment to replace the chief, deputy and assistant of the section. Those removed go into reserve until a new dispute arises and there are new personnel rearrangements (make this a bit on normal circulation of management in place of resstructuring??). This strategy works because the director knows his employees very well, and has a reserve of personnel.

The other response of management to difficulties is reorganisation: merging two sections or creating a new one (or brigade). Apart from the immediate effect of reducing social tension, or transferring it inot other channels, this makes it possible to reduce the cohesion of primary collectives, reminding the workers of their dependenc

on management, eroding the traditional psychology of community. This reduces the probability of solidarity strikes.Thus, in the conflict in section one the likelihood of a chain reaction - a series of interrelated strikes through the sections was quite high, but was constrained by the actions of management, and for the same reason the workers of section one did not support the workers of other sections. There is a view that drunkenness has increased at work and at home, and there have been some cases of individual workers assaulting ITR.

transfers

The next problem is transfers from face to face. When one section knows that it is leaving this face, its attitude to the work changes correspondingly, this becomes `not his'.

Payment system in the mine

1992 The fourth problem - a universal problem - there is no clear system for working out the individual labour contribution of each worker. The existing system of KTU and KTV, as a rule, does not work or only works formally. The differentiation of pay between good and bad workers in the team, in the brigade, is practically non-existent. The collective system of appraisal of pay does not respond to new needs. From this follow all the psychological costs related to levelling. THE PARTICIPATION OF TRADE UNIONS IN THE BARGAING ON PAY SYSTEM AND PAY LEVEL The tariff agreement was settled betweem the Official trade union(ÍÏÓ) and the Ministry of Fual and Power and the Ministry of Labour ofRussia. During the process of working out the agreement and settlementit the members of ÍÏÃ also took place in it. The main points of the chapter 5 (Labour pay) are as follows: 1.If the enterprise consider it expedient it can use tariff(basic) pay or salaries or tariffless system. The enterprise itselfdesides what system of labour pay ,tariff ana salary pay level andbonuses and also the proportion of pay level of different professionalgroups it should use. The desition is fixed in collective agreements. Managers and specialists are payed usually on salary base. Salaryis set up by administration of the enterprise in accordance with thepost and qualification. Enterprice can use the other system for managers and specialistspay (percentage of the profit etc). 2.The regulation mechanism of labour pay is establishedconsidering inflation. The minimum pay level for the workers of coal industry that wasestablished in accordance with the Statement signed 8 September 1992is promoted in accordence with: -the difference of the growth of pay level index and growth of

consumer prices in september-december 1992,considering coefficient 0,8. -the level beforehand avarage consumer prices level,which was 50%in the first quarter of 1993,considering coefficient 0,8. Pay level indexation takes place at the end of each quarter. 3.If the enterprise is going to change pay system it shouldinform Trate union and the worker,whose pay system is changed twomonths beforehand.The economic ground for this changing must bepresented. 4.To take into consideration expenditures for tax pay fornormative pay level exceeding. 5.Money are given to increase State technical controle(supervition) worker's pay level. 6.All additional pay for the work in the North and regionalcoeficients is accounted for the whole sum of money the worker gets.Nomaximum level can be fixed. 7.Not less then 100% of tariff pay level is paied in the case ofunavoidable work stop,when there is no worker'guil (no supply etc) 8.If the way to the working place takes more then 2 hours ,thistime is payed in accordence with tariff pay level. 9.While setting the Collective agreement in the enterprise it canbe taken into consideration than the etra time that was spent forindustrial purposes can be paid for. 10.Money are given to increase technical colleges teachers paylevel.

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AT THE PIT LEVEL In Alarda shareholder's society the bargaining took place betweenthe workers of the society and the admitistration. A special sectionof the Collective agreement (section 1) fix that the officialtradeunion represents the workers of the society. Section 2 is devoted to labour pay.There are 11 points init.Chief economist is resposible for it. 1.The enterprise itself defined the forms,systems and pay level.Tariff rates and salaries created by the State are used as a landmarkto differentiate pay level in accordance withprofession,qualification,complexness and conditions of work and aregaranteed minimum pay level for concrete professional-qualificationgroups if all norms of labour were carried out. 2.In the case of labour norms or system of pay changing the TradeUnion must be informed beforehand (a month before brining it intopractice).All changes must be economically based.If in a month periodTU will not give evonomically based reproofes or objections theemployer has the right to use new labour norm or pay system. If the are objectons on the side of TU the employer can't use it. 3.The connection between job pay and the output must be simpleand understandable for each worker so he could controle if theaccountance of money was right.

4.The worker must get pay slip two days before he gets money. 5.In order to improve the quality of the product administrationand TU must fullfill the STATEMENT ABOUT recieving the product andservices. 6.In oder to stimulate those who work in the repair shift toestablish the additional pay (20% of tariiff rate) for electritiatsand operator indepentantly of the output. 7.If there is temporarily no work (in case of incidence, changingthe face or drivage) the workers must get the work in accordance withtheir grade. If it is not possible they may temporarily fulfilladditional work . If the pay level is lower they shold getcompensation as much as the avarage pay level of the workers of thisprofession for the last month. 8.All kinds of pay fine are forbidden if there were nooffence,connected with production activities. 9.The employee must get their pay on the 14 of the nest month. 10.To go on with improving of work stimulating system. 11.The piece workers of the shop 7 (drivagers, ) shold get theirpay in accordance with their tariff rates.

In Lenin mine there is only the project of the Collectiveagreement because the Conference didn't take place this year.TheCollective agreement should be signed be the administartion of themine (director) and both TU that exist in the mine.The section onlabour norms and pay is much larger that that in Alarda. It consistsof 24 points. 1.The enterprice itself defines the forms,systems and level ofpay in accordance with the results of the enterprice operation. Tariff rates and salaries created by the State are used as alandmark to differentiate pay level in accordance withprofession,qualification,complexness and conditions of work and aregaranteed minimum pay level for concrete professional-qualificationgroups if all norms of labour were carried out. 2.The connection between job pay and the output must be simpleand understandable for each worker so he could controle if theaccountance of money was right (agreements with brigades, shops,divisions). 3.Job is payed in accordance with tariff rates and salaries andthe work output, and also in accordance with other normmativedocuments, that were worked out in the mine and were approved bydirector, TU and Labour Collective Council. 4.The revision of pay level takes play when there is need inimproving the pay system and in the case of incidents,mountainviolation etc. 5.The Labour collectives must know beforehand the condition of theagreement of the monthly bargain between administration and brigade,shop, divition . The agreement shoud be obligatory signed by thebrigadir. If there is a disagreement, The Enerprise Council shouldtake the conflict into consideration. 6.If needed to correct the time connected with production process

and to pay for it in accordance with the Regulation. 7.The collective of the mine sells the coal cut over thevolume,that was provided by the state supplies as it wants. 8.If the changes in the labour pay are planned there should benotice 2 months beforehand. 9.If there is no norms of the output for some kinds of work touse the similar or to create new ones. 10.When the new technik or technology is assimilated the payshold be in accordence with the work carried out but nut the less thenthe avarage pay level for the previous 3 months. 11.If mountain or technical conditions have changed the norms andprice rates should be changed simultaniously and knowed after they areapproved by TU. 12.If the plan was not fullfilled and it was not worker fault (nosullpies,the work place is not prepared etc) the avarage pay levelshould be payed. The stop in work and its cause is fixed by theforeman and is confirmed by the chief of the shift. 13.A part of the expenditures is applied to the guilty person ordivision (guilty in work stop). During the work stop the workers canbe used in other work places and must fullfill any work theadministration gave them. If the worker refuses to do it thr work stopis payed in accordance with the law. 14.If the workers are doing the work which was not foreseen andthey are agree to do it ( the work on the objects of social welfare,inagricultural farms, town boiling house etc) they have all thepriveleges and get the divition avarage pay level for the timeperiod (if regime (mode of operation) is kept to). 15.40 % additional pay for night shift should be given the theunindustrial group workers. 16. Technical and economic divitions should expertise proposalsand pay royaty in a month period. 17.The single pit Material stimulation fund should be usedaccording astimated approved be the director of the mine,Labourcollective council and TU.(Applications 1,2 3). 18.TU should be acquainted with all documents on labour pay andlabour organisation,that comes from the upper organisation. They canhave all the information and documents on labour organisation and pay. 19.To give TU all normative documents 3 days beforehand in caseTU should approve it. 20.Administration must collect TU dues and transfer it to TUaccounts. 21.Bonuses for long service are set up for all pit industrialstuff. 22. To pay bonuses in accordance with the year results (13 th pay)from profits. 23.Holiday pay ,if needed, shoul be payed in the pitcash-desk. Last three monhts pay level should be the base for holidaypay level. 24.If there was non-industrial incident (5 days which are notpayed for) it can be payed as the holiday,if the worker likes to.

The section on pay is the shortest in Dimitrova mine.There areonly 4 points in it: 1.The constant Pay Comission consisting of Labour CollectiveCouncil works out Pay Thesis (applicaton 1). Temporarily Pay thesis are aproved by LCC and coordinated withadminictration and Executive Comitee of the Independent TU. 2.The constant Pay Comission changes and completes Pay thesis ifthere is a change in "Pay" section of Tariff agreement,subsides,priceor other factors,influencing pay. 3.Administration must account pay before 10th of each month andto pay it when there is cash enter. 4.Long-service bonuses deprivation is not allowed in the casediciplinary violation. The collective agreement was signed by pit administration andIndependent TU.

Problem of pensioners

The problem of non-working pensioners of the mine is fairly specific to the Lenin mine (because it is the oldest in the town). They amount to 2,500 people. Apart from the traditional forms of support they will receive as their share a significant proportion of the shares issued with the privatisation of the mine. The mine administration has to take this fact into account. An extract from the article `Generous gift of the administration', Tomusinsk miner 9.10.92:

` It is difficult for almost everyone now. There is only one thought in one's head - to feed oneself and one's family, to pay for communal services in time, and one can't even dream about clothes. And on top of all that, for young and relatively young people, there is one indispensible thing, their health.

Well, what is to be done for those, who have been caught up by old age and those who are not ashamed of this poverty. ...Goes on all about a great evening laid on for the pensioners at a cost of 30,000 roubles.

Pensioners, working and non-working, invalids and families of the dead shares in hard currency earnings.

Conflicts in the mine

Conflicts vary between departments and services. For example, there was a conflict in the geological department of the mine. The department comprises five people: the senior geologist, three geologists and one technician. Tension rose between the chief and two of the geologists, one of whom was a woman. The senior geologist, who was not a bad specialist within his own specialist area, had fairly strict and authoritarian methods of managing people, which accorded with his own personality. They had worked together for some time, but when he tried to introduce some changes in the methods of geological forecasting this aggravated relationships. It came to the point

at which his subordinates openly refused to carry out his orders and instructions. Higher management had to intervene, and since talk was now of sacking (`either I go or they do’), one of the geologists was transferred to subordination to the chief markscheider. However this measure did not isolate the conflict, but simply transferred it to a higher level, between the chief geologist and the chief markscheider.

This example clearly shows that changes in technology and in the distribution of rights and responsibilities also entail changes in inter-personal relations. The sphere of intellectual labour is more sensitive for such changes. In this sphere notable changes have already taken place in the mine, but changes in management methods now (Nov 1992) lag behind them. But it should be noted that the administration remains loyal to the specialists, representatives of intellectual labour. They face no direct threat of redundancy, the importance of high skilled labour and the need for continuous training of ITR is stressed.

Main conflicts are connected with planning amounts of work of the sections. In main sections this is with an agreement between section and mine administration specifying amount of work and level of payjment for it. Planning usually involves deputy directpor and planning department, on one side, and chief of section and brigadier on the other. When there are disagreements, which there often are, others such as STK and trade union get involved. In the most acute cases, when it reaches the stage of a threatened strike, the director gets involved.

Traditional conflicts are around level of wages, delay in payment, distribution of barter, lack of information about financial position of the mine, expenditure out of profits. :Lenin did not participate in June 1993 general strike. But three miners supported the Prokpevsk hunger strike in Feburary 1994 (V. Pavlikov, S. Kramer, A. Kamenestkii)

October 1992

Conflict arose in October 1992 between the mine management and section number one.

The section was created in its present form in January 1992 out of two sections, the first and seventh, as a result of the fall in the colume of production, which meant that only five extracting sections were required to work the five faces. The two were combined under a single management, and this also freed a complex. Moiseev, from the first section, remained as chief, and Kots’ko, chief of the seventh section, went to be deputy chief in the eighth section. Some of the faceworkers were transferred to make up labour shortages in other sections, but there was still a need to reduce the numbers. The section chief then had to select the strongest. In the opinion of the deputy director for production [ Evgenii Mikhailovich Tsyplakov, 12.10.92] the outcome was an efficient collective, but the main problem was the failure of Zhikharev to carry out his functions as brigadier [the workers thought so too]. He had been a good zven’evoi, but when he became a brigadier he could not handle the job. The director did not like him either, because he was heavily involved in commercial activity, buying barter goods from the workers to resell. He was on vacation at the

time of the dispute. The deputy for production also considered that Moiseev, who was a young man, about 30, was not up to the job in difficult conditions: `He is a young lad who tries his best, but traditionally the third seam has difficult faces, with faults, and the work has to be well organised at the base, at the level of the brigade.’ The previous face `was a good one, producing good coal, and all went well. In difficult conditions, where additional physical effort is required, simply to put your hand to the shovel, it turned out that they could not do it. By contrast - the second section. In difficult conditions, with a lot of manual labour…’. Finally, the payment system is at fault, because `the system itself was adopted, but its conditions were not fulfilled’, since it `presumed a degree of responsibility of people to the collective, to the mine, to the administration’. In practice people did not lose money for not fulfilling the plan, so when the workers here were warned in September that they would lose money, they did not believe it. In August it transferred to finishing work on face 5-3-1-0 after the second section. Conditions for the collective were established for fulfilling the volume of extraction and with that their pay. In September the working of this face had to be finished off. But they had to work both on finishing the old face and on opening a new one?

Interview with STK boss: Konstantin Semenovich Uvykhmin, 12.10.92. The section was not happy with this task (there were refusals to work) and their average earnings for September amounted to 9200 roubles, whereas for fulfilment of the plan they would have received 32,000. This figure appeared to have been calculated correctly, given their failure to meet the plan, but to penalise workers so heavily for a shortfall was unheard off - normally the plan would be renegotiated, or their wages would be made up to the average level. (Officially The plan could be revised up to the 10th of the month) [Not clear if this is under the new norm-based system, which seems to have come in in August.] But now the plan was defined by the norms, and it had been signed by the brigadier.There was nothing in the order book to help resolve the problem - the book merely recorded the orders for each day, and that they had been accepted. There were no reports of any failings on the part of any workers or of any reprimands, so there was no basis on which to accuse any particular people of responsibility for the failure to meet the plan, nor was there any way of telling whether they had given 100 per cent, or only 50 per cent. The deputy for production claimed that he had seen people sleeping on the shift, but there was no documentation of such an allegation. There is a rule in the mine that for the KTV or KTU the shift foreman has to enter into the order book an appraisal of each shift `taking account of the opinion of the zvenevoi’, to give managers more methods of management. The chief appraises the work of the foremen, and so the team as a whole, every few days, and senior management appraises the section chief every month. But this is all purely formal. Nothing works as it was intended, or at least it worked for June and July in the relation between the director and section chiefs. Then the director applied it to everyone, but the first and fifth sections applied to the Council of the enterprise for it to be reviewed. This was not done, but it was only formally introduced

When the workers found that they were not making the plan a special meeting was called, but only the first shift attended the meeting.The workers sent Moiseev to the director to beat out their pay, but he was not successful because he was too young and uninfluential.

A special brigade for finishing off face 5-3-1-0 was created on the initiative of the mine administration, which included 14 workers from the first section. The remaining members of the section were transferred to a new face.

Our conclusions were reported to the management and a decision was taken. On 27 October a meeting of the workers of the first section took place, attended by the Director of the mine, the Deputy for Production, the Deputy for Economics, the Deputy for Personnel, the President of the STK, the chief of section, the deputy and assistant chiefs of section, two gorni masters and 45 workers. At the meeting a critical report of the work of the section over the two previous years was given by the Deputy Director for Production. Then the Director answered questions from the workers and recommended to the collective a new chief of section and brigadier. Attention was also drawn to the fact that a number of workers in the section, in accordance with the recommendation of the sociologists, will be removed from the section. This did not arouse objections from those at the meeting.

The details of the conflict are laid out in an interview with workers of the mine lint4.raz

This conflict flared up again in September 1993, over low wages. The miners claimed that the assembly section had set up the conveyor inadequately, as a result of a lack of proper control by the mine’s ITR, so that the belt kept coming off the tail of the drum. The result was that they were losing about two hours per shift just clearing up the coal, a total of eight hours lost per day, so that they got low production and low pay. The administration in this conflict was represented by the deputy director for production. He claimed that it was a matter of weak organisation of work in the section.

Payment system: conflict March 1993 between director and heads of development sectionsunder the tariff agreement miners have the right to construct their own wages system. At Lenin it is still based on the traditional five grade system for the main shops: underground unskilled workers are grades 1-3, electricians 3-5 and operators and skilled workers on grade 5. Other workers’ pay is linked to the basic shops by coefficients.The pay of skilled underground workers is the pivot of the payment system. At Lenin the section chief bargains with the chief economist and chief engineer over the level of planned output and over the price, usually each month, which gives a monthly figure in terms of price per tonne (or per metre, since tonnage is estaminated by the markscheider on the basis of metres cut). This negotiation has nothing to do with norms or norm-setters, but merely the experience of the chief engineer and the experience of the section chief. According to the collective agreement this should be signed by the 25th of the previous month. [Is this the old or the new system, or both?:There is then a system of bonuses, with three different options, the third option providing a large bonus for substantial overfulfilment, but also the largest penalty for a shortfall. This gave section chiefs a strong incentive to bargain the plan down, because by doing so they could substantially increase their bonuses.] This means that the workers know early in the month how much they will get if they meet the plan,

although they do not really know what they wiull get if they do not meet it. However there was a great deal of conflict over this system, exacerbated by the fact that the chief economist is unpopular and cannot communicate with workers, so that when there is conflict usually somebody else is sent in.

Pay in the concern according to a coefficient introduced in 1992, first in Dimitrova mine. The coefficients are different in different mines. In Lenin they were: Mine foreman 1.1, mechanic 1.25, deputy section head 1.20, section head 1.35, calculated from the achieved earnings of the skilled faceworkers. The chief engineer and director’s pay is defined in relation to the average of all the section chiefs, with the chief engineer having a coefficient of 1.30 and the director 1.35. However, these are calculated on hourly pay rates, so in practice the differentials are higher because eg the director works an 8 hour day, the miners 6 hour. This was adopted at the trade union conference.

The deputy director for economics does not like this system (8.10.92). `It is easier for us, the economists, there is less work. But this approach to determining wages has the effect of reducing the amount of work done. For example, in the past the workers in the auxiliary sections had a plan to fulfil, specifying a concrete amount of work, and if they overfulfilled it they received a bonus. Now they know that, even if they do not do any work, they will receive their pay, because this depends on the work of the faceworkers. So the role of pay in stimulating labour has been reduced. Now the pay of the faceworkers does not depend on output norms at all, but it is simply a matter of who shouts the loudest gets the most. So, the second and eighth sections got extra money from the general director of the concern for their output and we paid them 57,000 rubles for September. Then other sections came to us and demanded that they should be paid more, without any thought of relating their pay to the results of their labour’.

At Lenin they do not use KTU becaiuse it is morally difficult, it used to be used only for punishment and they cannot punish workers any more.

Dissatisfaction with the payment system had been building up as a result of inflation, because basic pay was only adjusted every six months, so that inflationary allowances were added as a bonus, undermining the incentive system. Demands for change were made at the labour collective meeting in July, mainly because people did not understand the existing system. The reform focused on the contract system, replacing it with a norm based system

The reason for the conflict was the lack of correspondence between the level of pay and the work completed. The Head of the Department of New Forms of Incentives and Pay, K.S. Uvykhmin was charged with investigating the issue and drawing up proposals for the resolution of the conflict.The department was established at the beginning of the year to resolve conflicts connected with pay. The head of the department was a former development worker and simultaneously president of the STK. With him in the department are two economists, one a woman with long experience as a norm-setter who worked previously in the OTZ but who had to leave the latter because of conflict with the chief. The other was a woman with only three years working experience who had qualified as a sociologist by correspondence.

First stage was research into the attitudes of workers and managers of the sections about the positive and negative features of the existing system of pay. As a result of work with experts they drew up a list of problems related in one way or another with payment. Some of them may have been objective problems, others may have arisen because of the absence or distortion of information.Problems identified by experts:I. Delays in payment of wagesII. Injustices in the system of pay1) comparison with other mines (Raspadskaya basic workers get 100,000 more).2) between workers with different levels of qualification with the same grade3) between workers in basic and auxiliary sections, For example, if extraction sections exceed the plan by 106% they earn 35,000. At the same time in ShT pay with a coefficient of 0.9 is also 35,000, while in UKT direct earnings are 31,000.III. Errors in planning related to the payment system1) The payment system is not understood and is unstable. The fact that fulfilment of a plan of 40,000 tonnes pays a wage of 21,600 while production of 46,000 tonnes produces 50,000.2. The size of pay depends not only on the productivity of labour but also on the sum of the basic wages. It is more profitable to produce a given volume of coal with a greater number of people. This leads to the paradoxical sitation that if 7 people produce a given amount of coal instead of the normal 13 they earn less than the full team.3. Deformations of the system of punishment in the section. If there is an engineering miscalculation the loss is borne by the workers of the section because they have to carry out unplanned work, fail to make the plan, which is in the majority of cases not corrected. No penal sanctions are imposed on the service or sepcialist which made the miscalculation.4. If the face is not ready in time as a result of an error on the part of the assembly section, the workers of the main section have to carry out other people’s work, laying rails, clearing rock and so on, since in this case the plan is also not corrected.5. The lack of correspondence of payment for various kinds of work with the difficulty of doing it. There is a big discrepancy in the evaluation of work for extraction and for assembly, although the assembly work is more difficult and heavier. As a result an increase in the amount of assembly work leads to larger numbers of people in the section taking time off sick.6. In planning the volume of work the specifications and capacities of the machinery and props are used, but conditions of the face and drift, violations, the presence of water, the amount of work that has to be done on the floor and roof, are not taken into account.IV OTHER1) dependence of pay of ITR on that of faceworkers encourages them to pay out bonuses, not to work better2) the planning system does not encourage a long-term view, promotes breakdowns of machinery3) the rights and responsibilities of section ITR are unbalanced. There is no incentive fund in the section, so that a good worker can only be rewarded by punishing another.4) Shift of emphasis in the use of the KTU to a form of punishment.5) Vagueness of criteria and procedure for establishing KTU (there are no strict indicators for increasing or reducing the KTU, the KTU is almost always ignored in

the monthly accounting of results by shift, and there is no clear answer to the question who sets the KTU?)The staff of the department then proposed changes in the system of payment for the development sections, taking all these factors into account. The system proposed was based on a normative approach (on the basis of branch norms), with coefficients defined by the conditions and determined by the chief engineer, chief economist, department of material incentives and the markscheider. The norms used four coefficients and also took into account the number of people. The plan retained the progressive bonus system. They saw the advantages of their system as follows:1. An orderly payment system2. Amount of work and geological conditions taken into account in calculation of the wage fund,3) wage fund depends directly on the amount of work done and on labour expended.4. There is the possibility of a preliminary calculation by the workers of the prospective level of wages5) The calculation of the plan for the wages fund is simplified, and the time spent in `closing the volume’ (according to the actual production) is reduced.6) Accounting is simplified in planning.7) In accounting the initial and normative assessments of each section are made in identical conditions.8) The proposed system simplifies the possibility fo transferring to internal cost accounting.9) The payment fund is disposed of by the section head. It becomes profitable for him to do the work with a smaller number of people which makes it possible to increase wages.

The head of the department explained the new system to all interested parties and agreed it with chiefs of sections and epartments. Then it was considered at a meeting in which the mine director participated, main specialists and department heads. There were no serious changes made to the system as a result of these meetings and the director gave instructions that it should be introduced at the beginning of may for the development sections, after small modifications had been made. Two weeks later the head of the department presented the changes at another meeting attended by heads of departments and sections, but not by his colleagues who had drawn up the plan, or by the director who was absent.At this meeting the head of the OTZ and head of the development service spoke out against the proposed system of pay. Everyone else took a neutral position. After the meeting the OTZ spent three days working out its own counter-position, abandoning all their other work. The head of the OTZ proposed a slight modification of the old system of payment, adding to it several elements of the payment system proposed by Uvykhmin’s department.The attempts of Uvykhmin to get the new system introduced in May were unsuccessful and he slammed the door, having decided to wait for the return of the mine director.Immediately after the return of the director he asked Uvykhmin to urgently prepare documentation for opening the brick factory, and his department was switched to this work. The question of the introduction of a new system of payment did not surface again.The opponents of the new system of pay were the head of the OTZ, head of the development service and several section chiefs. The main reason for the opposition of

the head of the OTZ was 1) the emergence of a competitor in the matter of wages 2) the need for restructuring his work, the development of new accounting techniques, which needs additional time. 3) unsatisfactory personal mutual relations with the main developer of the system.The main reasons for the opposition of the head of the development service were:1) fear that the conflict will be carried over to other sections and the section chiefs, who have much higher authority and influence will emerge as opponents, since indicative calculations for the two previous months showed that their pay would have been less under the new system of pay because of the lower taughtneess of the plan compared with other sections (Bat’kov and Popov brigades). I.e. with the introduction of the new system of pay the interests of brigades which had advantages under the planned volume of work, would be encroached upon.The main reasons for oopposition on the part of the chiefs of development sections. 1) the authority of `successful’ shop chiefs is threatened.2) responsibility for the results of labour is increased, which is negatively perceived by some shop chiefs (`defects will be obvious since everything will be indicated in the system’).3) Moreover many section chiefs do not take Uvykhmin seriously as a department chief, since he has no special training and has a limited understanding of the payment system in general and the proposed new system in particular.The opponents of the system used the following methods of resistance: refusal to provide information by OTZ workers (`come back later, I haven’t any time to look for it now’); avoidance of discussion of results of the incentive department; delaying the decision about the introduction of the new payment system; partial acceptance of the proposals.The other workers reckoned that the new system would work to their advantage.

January 1994 conflict with npgThe NPG president, at the meeting of the council of trade union presisdents, accused the director of a lack of control over financial and economic activity and the absence of information about costs and profits. Nobody monitors this any more since the council of the enterprise disintegrated and there is no more STK. There are rmours in the mine that managers have been profiting by `recycling money’, at the same time as wage payment is delayed. These people have left (Golubkin, former director; Klekovkin, former deputy for economic qeustions; Kasimov, former chief of autotransport), while the mine decays. The director invited NPG to present all the neceesary documents to a commission which would be selected by the trade union or the auditing commission.

June 1993 conflict with UMGShO employees (assembly administration).Workers stopped assembly of a face as a result of nonpayment of wages, delaying the introduction of the face.

Administration- assembly section 199411 February 1994 section struck for 4 hours asa result of w months non-payment of wages. Shift meetings with enterprise administartion NPG PRUP took place. Section

demanded 1) pay for december with compensation for inflation 2) pay for january not later than 20 February 3) payment of holiday pay no less than three days before the start of the holiday 4) payment in cash thorugh the cash department. The administration advanced payment almost at once.

Conflict PRUP, NPG, Council of the society of pensioners and invalids of labour.The council has three members, chairman Makarov, accountant San’ko and treasurer Skakun. The dispute arose in August-September 1993 over complaints by invalids that the funds of the society were being distribute unfairly. The NPG bureau and trade union committee jointly set up a revision commission to investigate the financial activity of the society, headed by the trade union committee president. The commission revealed various discrepancies and inadequacies in the accounts, and evidence of misappropriation by Makarov.

Conflict trade union social departmentAs a result of thirty written complaints to the trade union committee about violation in sale of barter goods, in February 1993 the trade union committee established a commission to check on the sale of barter goods.

Involvement of miners’ wives in conflict 1994Tomusinskii Gornyak, 8, 1994 published a letter signed by 19 miners’ wives addressed to the management of the mine demanding the payment of wages for December and January with indexation, otherwise they threatened that they would come to the mine ABK and hold a hunger strike.

Extracts from interviews:Conflict in first section. September 1992

Director of mine: October 8 1992The first section was transferred to finish off the face which another section had worked successfully the previous month, producing 31,000. The first section was given a plan of 15,000 because they had transferred to new conditions. The first fifteen days they produced only about 6,000 complaining all the time that the equipment was old, that they were used to much better conditions. Then they started to claim that the plan was impossible. I had offered to negotiate with the brigade at the beginning of the month, proposing intensive work for corresponding pay, but the brigade refused. Other sections came to these negotiations. The chief engineer offered the brigade Sunday pay, the regular rate stirred them up a bit. When they closed the accounts, they got on average 7200 roubles according to the norms. The brigade sat down.I proposed to them that if they could meet the plan by the 20th there would be extra payment for September as well as what had been offered for October. The group representing the brigade agreed, and reported to the second shift, but the latter did not support them and sent them to haggle with the director. I did not go.We decided to put together a composite team from various sections. First the deputy for production and a former brigadier went to the face. They came to the conclusion

that the whole business was the hands of the people who work in the section - instead of which the complex had not moved.??? It was obvious that ...the third and fourth shifts began to work. Matters went for correction. But for five days they did nothing. Three shifts changed the unfinished supports, why put down a coefficient of 1.0 for them? Everything remained as before, there would be no end to it. They go to another face. So now I am reorganising it to form a new collective. One cannot drag out the working off of this face, or other brigades will have no work. 41 people will finish off this face, with a wages fund of 2.5 million rubles. The others will go to another face. To this section 14 people will come to make a new team.

Chief technologist. I.A.Proshkin.October 12The work was complicated, but not abnormal and the technology was standard. There were some problems in the conditions. We expect to get 50,000 tonnes with this equipment in normal conditions. We had got good results working out face 2-3-2-0 in similar conditions, and on this face section 2 was getting up to 28,000, on average 18-22,000. Section 2 started the face in 1990 and worked on it until September 1992. There was a spontaneous fire at the beginning of 1992, and section 2 was sent off on holiday. The ventilation shaft had to be sealed off, but section 2 came back to work it OK until it was decided to send them off to prepare a new face and bring in section one to finish off this face on 1 September. I had proposed that section 2 should stay on this face to work it out, because it takes time to get used to a different face so production falls, and send section 1, which had just finished working out their own face, to open the new face. But they moved section one across.They were given quite a stiff task, to work out the face by the end of September. It takes several days to get set up on a new face, and this brigade had not worked on a thick seam (this one is 9.5 metres), which requires particular skills, having been on medium seams for the past three years. The last time they had worked on a complex of this type was in April 1991. Moreover than into unforeseen geological difficulties. This was why by the middle of September the brigade had got the face into an almost unworkable condition. In October, after the closure of the books, the brigade went on an Italian strike, going down the mine but not producing any coal. The contract had not been negotiated because they were working to orders, not to contract, because the brigade had not been happy with the conditions offered, but under the normative system the mine could not make any concessions. The reasons for the poor work of section 1 were the lack of discipline of the ITR and executives, their losing the skills to work on this equipment.

Meeting of workers with chief, deputy, assistant and mechanic of the section oneOctober 8thSection chief announces that 18 people are going to form another brigade on another face from 15th, 30 groz remain in the section. Workers ask about pay and conditions, complain that there is no agreement. Ask how the list of transfers was drawn up, complain about repeated transfers, incompetent management, that director has not come to the meeting, don’t need the administration, won’t work without knowing conditions and how much will be paid, need guarantees that necessary equipment will be there, want to work on a contract, not under orders, and if it is assembly they

wasnt average pay, not normed, because it is work outside their profession, deputy director told them they do not know how to work. Pissed off with constant changes, lack of information, contempt shown for them by senior management, failure to consider their working conditions

Acting deputy director for production Gennadii Romanovich Shtern, 14.10.92.`The first section could not master the conditions and could not work. But they could not work for the reason that …having reached the face one has to work. They sat around for fifteen days. In the full sense they slept, `we will not work on this face’, because they claimed that they had been given a broken-down complex. For fifteen days they did nothing, then they gradually began to work. In a day they produced a total of 110-120 tonnes. In the month as a whole they produced a total of 5,000 tonnes, when they should have worked the face out.… The ventilation for this face goes through face 0-3-1-6, so we could not begin assembly and disassembly of the other face, so they have imposed big costs on us.No proposals came from the first section, neither from the managers nor from the workers, whether to increase the numbers, although the first section already is the largest in the mine, about changing the work regime to make the collective more effective, nor was anything even said about pay. On the initiative of the administration the mine created a brigade of specialists - good workers from the collectives of sections 8 and 2, and 14 people from this section. They got down to work from the first day, fixed the complex in two shifts … and decided themselves to work an eight hour regime. This was not a collective of 130, like the first one, but of 41 people in all. We gave them complete freedom. … They flew…They went at it from the first day, and produced 1500, and by the 25th the face was finished.’ The workers wanted to be paid before they did any work `But who pays in advance?… I said to them: “I will pay what you earn”. I paid — according to the trade union scale — two basics. … And I went to the director and said: `do not think about paying them any more’. Because I had caught them sleeping. They switch off the light and slept there. And I went specially, every shift. I watched for this.’…`Now we have sent them to prepare a new face. All those who remain in the collective. The management immediately acted badly. They sent 22 face workers, plus fitters and labourers on vacation, so that one third of the section is on vacation. Just when this face needs extra work … They are virtually all on vacation. Some are on sick leave. Many of them leave as soon as there is a face to be started up. They receive money, then they leave again. There are some of those slovenly people who go on sick leave and slip away. And he let them all go.’ Goes on ranting about the section chief.`At the beginning the first section, well, they were strikebreaker types, all like that you know …Some — you need us, we will stay here with you. Some, those lads who went to work out the face, `go to hell, you don’t give me money to earn, and I want to earn’ and left. Those who remain work by the sweat of their brow. One can say that the best people have been selected. This is the part of the collective who worked, but who were paid equally with the others. All were the same level. But now it has become possible to distinguish them. We have simply found a reserve which can help the mine at a difficult moment. And maybe we will be able to think of this in future as the skeleton of the section… Why could the first section not be like this? They

simply did not tink and did not want to. The basic reason was that they did not have very good management which could run the complex’.

Vladimir Fedorovich Moiseev, chief of section 1, 14.10.92The difficulty was that we had to work two faces on the same seam, keeping a distance of 20-30 metres between them. [ Not clear whether this conflict was under the new payment system, and how much it was connected with it. The head of STK said he did not know because he had not looked into it, but it sounds like the problem of a rigid pay system]

V.V. Tatarnikov, deputy chief of section one .21.10.92This kind of situation is not normal, but it is not exceptional either, it happens in every section, especially when you know that you are transferring from a good to a bad face. `I have worked in this mine for twenty years and all of this repeats itself constantly. It is the system. All these consequences follow from it’. The problem arose because the section had just finished off one difficult face, and now they faced the prospect of an even more difficult one, and they were fed up with this work, which normally pays well. The situation was made worse by the fact that the neighbouring section was making relatively good money, although when our face was working we were producing more coal than them. It doesn’t help to explain clearly to the workers that the working conditions are different, that the faces are different. For them it is all the same, they fulfill the plan and they are paid. That’s right. The merger also affected the situation, although we selected people from the seventh section to join us, and they picked people and formed teams themselves. At first we formed teams from each section, we didn’t mix people up, but since then, with movement to other work and people leaving on rumours of cuts, they have become mixed together.I blame senior management for the problems, because they announced in advance that the second section would be moving to a good face, and the first section would be coming to finish the work. Naturally the second section concentrated on getting the coal out and did not bother with maintenance and repair. The first section arrived, already reluctant, to find everything in a mess.Money plays a much more important role. I have worked for many years and I know that in the past many people worked to get their pension, and this was more important than the money they received. Miners’ pensions were much bigger than others. But now the pension is miserly, so people work for money, although some people make mony on the side and earn more in a day than they can in a month here. The best workers have left the sectionA good worker is `one who knows his work. He knows it according to his grade … you do not have to spell out everything about how to do the job from A to Z. I tell him, explain in general terms what is to be done, what it is for, and he does it. He takes the initiative himself and does it.’ `It is hard to work with people who have to be told what to do all the time, for managers and for workmates.’

Acting assistant section chief of section 1 Polezhaev, 21.10.92.

Basically gives same reasons as chief technologist. The problem was the difficult conditions and the fact taht they had not had experience of those conditons or that equipment for some time. Another problem was that their brigadier, who was a good worker, was away. But they worked normally for the month and the problems only arose at the end of the month when they discovered their pay. They are guilty of only 10 per cent of the difficulties.The absence of people on vacation was not very important. We have a good management team, we also lost our pay, yet we managed as well as anybody could have done. Only the brigadier was missed, because he has experience of dealing with people outside the section. The chief of section is young and maybe does not have the experience to negotiate with senior management.You can’t persuade people to work if you don’t pay them. People are not stupid nowadays. You have to reach an agreement in advance, you have to go and see the director and reach an agreement and explain it to people in the section. That is your basic job, to explain to people in advance what they have to do and what they will get for it, then everyone is happy.We could not change the geological conditions. We went to see the deputy for production and the chief engineer and told them that we could not make the plan, but nobody would reduce the plan. Everybody knew well in advance that conditions were difficult and that we would not make the plan.

N.N. Gusev. Chairman of trade union committee 24.11.92

Changes in administration: new structure in the economic service is a good thing because the economists are old and you need fresh people.We were not the first to create a social department, they have one at Raspadskaya. The administration should be occupy itself with social questions: housing, help for pensioners, veterans and invalids, and families of the dead. `The administration must take on all these functions. Because, if you look at ti soberly, who has the money? The administration. According to the old habits this all falls to the trade union committee. But the trade union committee has two tasks of its own: One of them is pay. The second task is the preservation of health and technical safety. And the analysis of conflict situations. These are the taasks of trade unions all over the world. You see, they don’t concern themselves with charity. Social matters and things like that. Everywhere these are the responsibility of the administration. New times — new structures.’ Do the interests of the trade union and administration diverge at all in handling these tasks? `No, because I consider that our interests do not diverge. We are both in favour of there being social protection for the workers. There must be some kind of social guarantees.’So far the new structures create no difficulties, but they are just starting and we have not been in contact. `What will happen in the future… Well, I think that we simply have to find a common language. Because we carry out one and the same role, one and the same responsibilities - the social protection of the workers.’Conflict resolution was the function of the STK and the Council of the enterprise. And we have a conflict commission. The trade union only gets involved if the enterprise council does not resolve the conflict, through the disputes commission and then it goes to court.

Section committees have to be involved in conflict situations. But everything depends on who has been elected section trade union president. If it is a good president who works normally, conducts a clear policy and explains it, then even the section chief leaves him to it, but if he is incompetent more disputes arise, for example around barter goods, and the section chief has to interfere.Most conflcits are about pay. 99% are about pay, in a brigade, a section, or a whole subdivision. Although we always meet the plan, in terms of pay of faceworkers we are in 12-13th place, and for surface workers we are 17th and last. Yesterday the kindergarten workers came to complain about their pay, which is half that of their colleagues working in other mines. Today we have to make an investigation of what their wages are, and how they can pay so much, and then go to the administration with all the facts and figures. The low pay of our surface workers is enough to show that conflict is ripening and could flare up at any time. The Ol’zherasskii open cast, right by us, pays twice as much as we do, and they attract precisely the people we need, so we are short of such staff. A lot of people still have not understood what is going on, and this is expressed in absenteeism, in coming drunk to work, drinking at work, people do not understand that tomorrow they can lose their job and not find another one. None of the mines are taking people on.There was a conflict over barter because our barter goods cost two or three times as much as at the neighbouring pits, which was resolved by a joint resolution of the STK and trade union committee to reduce prices by 50%.The trade union is not directly involevd in distribution, unless a conflict arises as above, and now these functions will go to the social department.Outraged at handing sotskultbyt to municipality and having to buy it back again. We want to keep it all and are negotiating about this. There will be no transfer for 93 because the city has no money to maintain all this. The trade union needs its own lawyer in these new conditions. The social department will have its lawyers, but they will belong to the administration. We need a lwayer to enforce the collective agreement and the labour code.All conflicts have to be resolved with the director because he decides everything. If he is away his deputies are afraid to make decisions. In the case of the kindergarten workers we start with a letter, gather information, go to the OTZ to explain the position to them, then to the depity for economic matters, who is responsible for the kindergartens, to get him involved in the business. In principle his department can resolve the question itself, with the help of the social department, without involving the director. We can resolve the probolem of construction workers wages in the same way - point out that they are leaving because of their plow pay and get it raised.We have to run around making sure the collective agreement is fulfilled as people come to us with complaints. A simple illustration: It was decided that our workers’ children could use the sports complex free of charge. Somebody took it upon himself to charge them. There are many similar issues. Let us say that they do not agree with the plan in section six. They negotiate with the brigadier. I know all about this. I was a development worker. I then have to go and show that they won’t make the plan and won’t get paid - it is a question of pay again.There was a dispute about special clothes which were in short supply. It was decided that people could buy them from a shop and get the money back with the receipt. And on wages, the savings banks have no money or cheques, so payment must be through the cash office, as in the collective agreement.NPG’s main appeal is medical insurance, but everyone knows it is one day’s pay only, and what if they are in hospital for 20 days, you will be bankrupt.

Actiung head of social department S.E. Alekseev, 24.11.92Social department will take up issues of pay, distribution of valuta. These should be handled by the trade union, but it does not do so. If these problems are not dealt with they pile up. In the last strike it started with pay, but then everything else got piled on top. When I discussed the job with the director it was not in terms of particular problems, but of working with people. The main thing is to keep close contact, because I am a former worker. A lot of things come up just talking to people in the street or at work. The director cannot pick everything up. That is why he has deputies, assistants.House construction has stopped. With Tomsk mine we are establishing a house building kombinat. We will provide credit for workers to build their own homes, taking account of their length of service. But privatisation is delayed and everything is uncertain at the moment. Not yet worked out best strategy with sotskultbyt etc. Maybe best to commercialise it. We have the most pensioners because we are the oldest mine in the city. We have 1500, Raspadskaya 300, Shevyakova 500. We give them 5% of barter goods for valuta, it’s about 1,000 roubles worth each.Conflicts are around pay and planning. For exaample, the norm may say 150 metres for a development section, but the section may be pressed to make 200 metres. They do not sign, and the month goes on with pressure to make the 200 metres ohn them all the time. By the end of the month they have made the 200 metres, but there is still no agreement and they are not paid for it. It is easier for the extraction sections because it is easier to see the conditions, but the development sections are going into the unknown and it is impossible to anticipate the conditions ahead of them. Maybe they have accepted 200 metres, but they run into a fault or rock. In principle the geologist and normsetter should come and review the norm, but they may not come for days, and time is lost.`We have not trade union as such. Pay, safety of working conditions, defence of our interests — they do none of this. Now our trade union is bogged down in distribution

A.V. Bashkatov: Head of department of new forms of economic management.24.11.92(new department within economic service)Attitude to reorganisation: it is complex, and while going through privatisation reorganisation is porohibited by lawmain functions of department: we are given problems as they arise, but mainly to help the chief economist.economic innovation. Now working on privatisation documentation. Check and analyse economic activity of divisions of the mine, economic basis of newly creatged MP, work with currency accounts etc. We developed changes to the payment system.On privatisation we will handle purchase and sale of shares.

Stanislav Vladimirovich ?? Chief geologist. 24.11.92I came here from Raspadskaya in 1984 as chief geologist. Zbrodov, the acting chief geologist, had expected to get the job, and he left some time later. At that time the

whole service was just two people: chief geologist and a geologist. Then Shemnikov came but he was useless and was dismissed by redundancy. In place of him they took on Osipov. Then I proposed an enlargement of the geological service and they took on Lyudmila Matveevna from Raspadskaya whom I knew as a good geologist and a specialist in geological prospecting. In 1991 Klassen came from Shevyakova. Earlier Klekovkina had worked with us as a geologist on contract who worked on capital construction and has now gone to the staff service. We also have a cartographer.I brought my style of work from Raspadskaya, and Osipov soon picked up this style of work, but it was difficult to work with Matveevna, who had worked a long time as a geological prospector, but not in mines. She was a good geologist, but only did the work which she considered necessary, if she did not think it necessary she refused to do it. For example, I increased the size of the service on the basis of making borings every 50 metres and put them on the computer, to get better predictions of faults, but she refused to do this since our official orders, drawn up in the days of manual mining, are to make them every 300 metres. I decided that it was difficult for her to take borings from the big 5 metre seam and put her onto another seam, but she disagreed. Then when I was on a business trip the chief markscheider reversed my decision and put her back on this seam. She neglects her duty to make written reports on the presence of dangerous zones, preferring to report verbally to the section chiefs about this. But if there was a collapse it will not be God who is responsible, but she as the ordinary executor and me as the chief. In prospecting forecasts are only checked several years later, but in production miscalculations quickly appear, but she has no fear. I reprimanded her and eprived her of 20% of her bonus. She was offended and demanded that I show her the instruction order in which it was written that borings had to be made every 50 metres. I had to write a change to the instructions and get it approved by the chief engineer, and only then did she agree. Moreover, she refuses to go down the mine other than during her scheduled time down there. Recently she refused to show me the diary in which geologists have to record all their time down the mine.

I have diasagreements with Klassenov, but no conflict with him. He disagrees with boring every 50 metres, but he usually does the work. With Osipov there is complete mutual understanding and he calmly carries out all my orders. I could resovle the conflict more easily of Volkov did not interfere, but he defends Matveevna, and he even said to me that I am a weaker specialist than her. And accused me of not predicting an inrush of water that flooded the face, although the instruments recorded it. And why did he reverse my order.The chief engineer spoke to her at my request and she already is fulfilling my orders. If you do so too as a psycholgist it might help, but she has absolutely no fear.

Brigadier, section 6, and Belov, prokhodchik,during naryad, 25.01.93

Prokhodchik does not like the payment system. They lose money if they hit rock, even though they have worked. You can’t live on 21,000. We get 21,000 for fulfilling the plan of 105 metres, but 40,000 if we make 135. Why? When the plan is set everything is taken into account, there are limits to what is humanly possible. There are few prokhodchiki left. We need four, but have only 2-3. But they are still trying to get rid of us, while on the second floor they can’t even fit all the desks in the

offices. How can we aren more if 5-10 people sit on our shoulders? …Four years ago I could earn 450 without much effort, and that was enough for everything. Now I earn 40,000 and it is not enough.Why has the director set a KTU of 1.1 for the year as a whole, taking account of vacations? Where will the money come from - from my pocket. All the money comes from selling coal. In reality he hasn’t given us anything, we earn it all ourselves. Why do they proclaim that our beneficent president gave us two months holiday? Nobody gave us a holiday from above, we worked for this holdiay ourselves.The KTV is an obscure document. Its only for loafers. At the end of the month the brigade meets to decide whose KTV to raise and whose to lower. If someone is an absentee or has a bad attitude to work his KTU is reduced. But is fomeone works better it goes to the whole team. It should also go to one person.

A.N. Gusev. Trade union committee president. 1.2.93What are the main problems: now it is the new form of payment. Bashkatov heads a special department with five people. We need a systemn that is intelligible, so that people know what their pay is going to be, instead of having all these complicated coefficients that just confuse people. A simple example is the starting price: our workers get 21,600 for plan fulfillment, but at Tomskaya 50,000 for groz and 54,000 for prokhodchik. It is simply a question of moral incentives. It makes a difference whether someone expects 21,000 or 50,000. The difference is only in the base wage. I looked at the wages in all the mines for the fourth quarter and found that the wages were pretty well the same at all the mines, but each mine has a different system of pay. Usinsk uses their own coefficients, Raspadksya keeps it secret. Tomsk has its own method. Two brigades at Raspadskaya get much more than ours, up to 100,000, but others get 46,000, which is less than ours. The biggest difference is with surface workers. Our teachers get 5-6,000, at Raspadskaya and Shevyakovo 10-11,000.When I worked on the face there was planning on the basis of the award of bonuses. Depending on what plan you chose, you had a particular type of bonus. Everybody tried to chose the hardest type. The system was so bad because today’s plan became tomorrow’s norm, so that next month the plan was higher. Now everyone works on a contractual basis, with an agreement stipulating all the working conditions. Earlier this system sort of worked, the agreements were posted in the sections, and everybody could see how much they would earn for so much output. But now it has once more become taught with the agreements. There is no information in any of the sections, you cannot see the conditions of labour anywhere. I think this is because of the sluggishness of the chiefs. The section ITR are often the ones who stir up conflict about wages. I was at a meeting with section 2 last week, and all the questions were raised by the shop ITR - the mine foremen and the mechanic, the chief just sat and said nothing. Who should know better than these specialists how pay is calculated? [The meeting with section 2 followed Gusev’s distribution of information about wages, he was trying to calm the conclift down]: Did they not accuse you of working on behalf of the administraiton in this cae? `Why? I simply gave people the facts’ Was that regarded as normal? `Well, the general tendency building up in Kuzbass now is towards a new strike. Who needs this? I think that the consequences will absolutely not be those that we want, but quite different. It will be one hundred per cent to the advantage of the administration, because all the mines are insolvent. Well, good god, if you strike, there won’t be any pay. There is coal in the stockpiles. We

can send it to the customers, abroad or wherever it is needed, and you will set there without any pay. The director will find money and pay those people who will keep the mine going to make sure that it will not be ruined.’ They used to listen to us in Moscow, but they do not listen any more. Our delegations come back empty handed. Vorgashorskaya has been stopped for two months,m but who has reacted? When we struck last time, we lost a lot of barter contracts. And those people who yelled their heads off at the time that we had no barter goods are now in the administration, like Kasimov who is now deputy director.What questions do people bring to you now? Recently the question arose of the allocation of currency to the medical workers, whom we had invited to the mine, but were not eligible for various buraucratic reasons of delay in the documents.. And we forgot to put payment for pensioners false teeth in to the collective agreement. Then the question of currency for those on sick leave, and many similar questions regarding access to foreing currency. Big problems getting money from Moscow and Kemerovo. It is still the same system, everything is in the centre.The biggest problem now is cash payment. In Usinsk they sell them barter goods on account and take it off their pay, but we have refused to do this.Barter goods are sold through AO Ariel’, which gets five per cent commission plus all the expenses. NPG stirs up a fuss about this: Pavlikov, Kramarov, Kemenetskii. They don’t understand. And they confuse people with this social insurance. If there are big differences between pay in different mines the workers make a lot of noise. I sometimes use this. We got the trade union presidents together and decided which was a compliant director, and talked him round. And then we each began to press on our own. They have adopted it there, why haven’t we? Our mine was the last to adopt it. By then he had nowhere to disappear. All the other mines were paying it, but not ours. Life is there to teach us. The city is small. But wages are not coordinated anywhere.`I will try to get rid of idlers. But how do you identify in practice the people you don’t need? These people are known in every section and in every brigade. But how to struggle with them is another question. If the brigadier is strong he will get rid of them by any means. Well, where there is a collective guarantee, you excuse it. This ballast will always hang on those fellows who go at it and work. Alekseev, who is now head of the social department - nobody wants to take anybody to him. We do not need this chatterbox, to confuse people and not give them work. And now he sits there. I do not know what the director has in mind? He is very rough with people.Qn: The KTU and KTV were introduced with the idea of appraising the efficiency of each individual. — They do not work. The brigade council will not usually vote for a reduction of KTU. We proposed that it should be set by the brigadier, as it used to be. It was much easier then. Qn: but how could the brigadier set it for shifts when he was not on duty? I covered every shift, and I told each shift to mark its work so that I could check, and I had the records. I set the KTU each month, but based on daily records. The mine foreman could make daily records. They should have presented a daily report, but this did not happen because the mountain foreman became a shepherd not a foreman. This was earlier, when the mountain foreman covered their pay… they were the owners of the shift. (Generally lamenting the good old days when managers managed). We need to give power the the GM. We do not need to reinvent the bicylce and go back to the old system. But he should cover the pay. Glubkin made an experiment — he sent in a norm-setter with the shift boss to teach the GM how to cover pay, how to close the books. This was for a month. But it should have been continued for more than one month. But workers often change the

GM. This should not happen. In a situation when it is necessary to punish he never goes against the workers.We are short of Gms with sepcialist qualifications, but we have many engineers and technicians in workers’ jobs, even doctors and teachers. The shortage of Gms is not their pay, which is more than the workers. It is because they are shepherds and boys on a hiding. They cannot oversee several faces, but they get punished for all violations. He will always be the scapegoat.

Chief of section one on the March 1 1993 strike, 2.3.93.

The reasons for the strike were inflation and uncertainty about the future. We do not know about any demands. The workers said, `they told us to sit, so we are sitting’. We know that the government has still not signed the tariff agreement. Nobody knew what the terms of the strike were, whether or not to deliver coal. The workers wanted to work but not deliver, particularly in the assembly shop, but we had to agree with the director which services would work, but it all went spontaneously.I gave the naryad to the first shift and all 15 went down. I explained to the second shift that it was not a strike. The conditions had not been met so that they would not be paid for the previous day. The second shift said `we as everyone’. Then they went off. Then the third shift: at 3 pm it became known that the strike had been suspended. Somebody said that those who struck had to go to register at the end of the second shift, and that they came drunk.Is a general strike likely? The workers’ collectives are divided. There will not be such a strike. Even the mine directors have agreed that they will not ship coal to KMK, but a Propkop’evsk mine secretly delivered. We have 5 NPG members but they did not strike. It was only the NPG activists who struck, Kamenetskii is the main bawler. And the weather was good - why work?

Chief of section eightOur first shift voted for production without shipment. Then a report came from thedevelopment sections that they had voted not to go down, but our second shift voted to go down but not to deliver. While they were dressing the telegram arrived calling off the strike. They met and left. After the 1989 strike of course we got our freedom, but if ytou take account of the cost of living our pay is no better.

Section eight workersNegotiations are useless. Nobody does anything. Only a strike can achieve anything. Main problem now is cash payment of salary, delays in payment and lagging behind inflation. Other problems:system of payment]need to combine the mine with the enrichment factorychange caluclation of pensions, disregarding pay but only accounting for length of servicebetter bus service

The director wants to sack people and take people on. He is reducing the underground sections while employing more and more in the offices. Section two has dispersed and is again threatenedThe technical stores are a long way awayThey are building the Azov complex from the profits, but we don’t need it, who will go there?Uvykhmin has already flown there four times.They have got 28 more people in the office but have cut the number of faceworkers. They are paid twice as much as core workers. Even Kemenetskii cannot find out what they are paid, the money goes from the director.Loaders at the beer factory get 50,000 and they drink beer. Workers of the ORS live well. Women in the enrichment factory get up to 90,000 and us...

10 March 1993 interview with brigadiers

Privatisation may be OK for enterprises which make profits, but we do not produce a final product. If we raise the price of coal then there is just a chain reaction of price increases.Coal industries are subsidised everywhere. Machinery costs millions, but our working conditions are getting worse. The situation in the mine is unstable. We cannot see a month ahead and the long term forecasts are always wrong. `Privatisation is permature. Only a few mines will survive across the country. But most of the mines will be forced to close under the law on bankruptcy. That means people will be thrown out. And where will they go? This is millions of people. They have only just started to create labour exchanges.’`Famine will begin, larceny, robbery. They are all interconnected.’`If we become a joint-stock company we will quickly become bankrupt.’`Nobody will give us anything. If today we can get things out of the concenr, and wages …if we are independent we will be in a real fix.’They don’t have any information about other mines which have privatised.`There are a lot of rumours, but nobody knows anything specific about the mine Raspadskaya. It is the largest mine in Russia. We do not know how things are going there. They have created a base. But we have to go to Novokuznetsk for every little thing, for example to repair our hydraulic props. We have not been able to establish a base. Now for every nut, bolt and screw you go somewhere, you beg, you buy, you swap. But you know yourself what the prices are now.’Everything should be done differently. So that there should be a khosyain. And move to a contract system, with the director on contract to the owner.Anything would be better than this. We don’t even really know what privatisation is. They said it would be explained in the newspapers, but it hasn’t at all.And every newspaper says different things, so nobody trusts any of them.What should change with privatisation? Above all, social justice. I produce coal on a mechanised face where you have to use your head and I get 40-50,000. Alongside is the enrichment factory where women with two classes of education just press a button and get 100,000.All feel cheated, have got nothing, complain at increasing number of managers and office staff, and overpay of the latter.

`Why is it considered that if someone studied in the institute, he should receive more. But why? He should be paid according to his contribution to production, and not because he finished the institute. This is the sorest injustice.’- `And the biggest — you deliver the plan, and for that you receive 31,000. You have to fulfill the plan by 115% to receive a 60 per cent bonus, to get 50-60,000. For 5,000 tons a 60 per cent bonus - that is with group 3’- `why such an injustice? For more they pay less, and for less they pay more. Why is the ceiling 115%? And why is there a plan? They should pay for the metre or for the coal. Where did they get this 31,000? Where does it all come from? .’ (Interview tries to get them to say there should be a KTU, but they don’t back it) Everyone on the same grade should be paid the same, if they can do the work. They all work as part of a team. Their jobs are fixed by the naryad.Qn: Management has done a study and concluded that each prokhodchik needs at least 5-6 auxiliary workers. - Nonsense. We make a monthly agreement with the administration, and we fill in all the paperwork in the section, then all the paper goes around the administration deparments. In the past there was just one woman doing the accounts for two or three sections and everything went well.They think the only criteria for efficiency should be fulfilling the orders and the quality of work, which can only be defined by eye. For the brigadier the brigade itself should chose the criteria of efficiency. There is a small enterprise working in the mine, Ispod, which produces 15,000 and pays 70-80,000, using all the mines equipment, energy etc. Not many came here from Shevyakova.Non-material forms of stimulation now insginificant.There is more conflict in the sections, basically over pay.Who do you turn to if there are conflicts over pay? `It is useless to go to anyone’To whom are the demands addressed? `To us, to the section chief, and you go higher’. `Basically they turn to us’If you don’t sign the agreement it has no effect on earnings. Sometimes the agreement is revised several times in the month. We want to be an ordinary state enterprise, with subsidies. `The whole of world experience shows that the coal industry cannot live without subsidies.’Will there be contradictions between workers and administration during privatisation? Certainly.About what?`A lot of people will be dissatisfied. The management will have more shares, the workers fewer. And it will turn out that some people will become gentlement, and the workers will remain as they were, workers.’`Well, there will be a Shareholders’ Council. We already had a Brigadiers Council, a Council of the Labour Collective. None of this will change’.`The director will have a lot of shares. He will be the owner. And then he will take a firm decision to have not four extraction sections but, let’s say, two. And the rest will be sacked. He will say, `I have enough coal’, and there will be redundancies. But they will cut us, not the apparatus.’`In 89 there were people we trusted, they were our guides. But now none of these people speak out for the workers, do not defend them. They have got everything that they wanted. I do not know where you can now find a crystal pure person. Who would not fall for these tricks.Argue about whether mine should support social services, kindergartens holiday base, etc or they should be paid for just by the users.

Sceptical of democracy of meetings. There has never been a general meeting, they are all delegate meetings with one representative per ten. Basic position is that nothing can be done in the mine until the state establishes stability.Discussion of situation in section one. `The director was not there. He has fallen for commerce’

Interview with gorni masters 10.3.93

Privatisation: They don’t really know what is going on. Expect privatisatino will lead to cut in subsidies, slash labour force from 4,000 to 2,000. Will you sign up for shares? ``Well we always have such campaigns. They tellus, we sign, and it disappears.’ What do you expect from privatisation? `Nothing. We do not expect anything.’ `At any rate, not in the next ten years.’ `Our mine is old and we will reconstruct it from our own resources, so we expect nothing.’ Wpont buy shares, Raspadskaya advised them not to. `What is there to do, it is no better anywhere else. They will not take us in other mines, things are even worse there. They have closed Shevyakova, Usinsk is a worse whole than ours, At Tomsk ther are only two sections.’ General pessimism. Look for jobs elsewhere.What are the problems? `Sharp deterioration in inter-personal relations, since they do not pay and they correspondingly do not work, they just pretend to work.’ `The pay is comparable with others on the surface.’ We are not satisfied with our pay, because it depends on the workers. This is not just. Our pay depends on the section (not the brigade). We should get paid more if we organise the work well. For March it is 20,000. All the assembly sections will get 75% of the extraction sections. If they make the plan they get 40,000. He ordered it … They already cut us to 32,000 - that is our ceiling. They increased pay by 1.9 times, and it was simpoly done. They have reduced the plan so that pay will remain the same as it was. It is very simply done, without offending anybody.’ `The director says that nobody needs the coal, so the plan is adjusted.’ `We worked through the month, and we do not know what our pay will be.’We have no positive levers of management, we can only punish the workers. The management punishes people, they cut pay by 30%, without explaining what for. It doesn’t do you any good to prove that you are not guiltySo how do you manage? An encouraging word, for example. There are people who have worked here a long time and they know what to do, and they get on with their work, even if they are not paid. It is a paradox. It is more difficult to work with young people, you can’t say anything to them, they are in no hurry to work. So you put a young workers with an older worker. There used to be a gm incentive fund, but now there is nothing. Only words remain, but they don’t work on young people. Non material incentives absolutely do not work any more. We work for money, people do not set store by their work. They leave and go to another mine where they might earn more. I think that if there were a contract systemn they would do their work, and they would be guaranteed the money laid down in their contract. There are still a lot of honourable people who work as they always have done.Mechanism for resolving conflict with workers: You can refer absentees and people who leave early to the Council. We write an order, otherwise they punish us, but the best thing is to get them to leave voluntarily. But now you have an absentee, you penalise him 30% of his pay, but he is young, he does not have much need of money,

but the foreman has a family to feed and he has to think carefully.’ `It is best to talk to the head of the OTZ, she knows best’. The assemblers have no interest in working. They cannot earn more than the faceworkers, they get only 75% of their wages, even though they are all on grade 5 and have responsible work.

Group interview with section chiefs 10.03.93What is happening with privatisation?The workers think that the administration is seizing all power and usurping it, to restore the full administrative-command methods of management. The SSTK, which was the former organ of workers’ control, is to be abloshed, so they will have no control. It is becoming clear to the workers that there will be no defence.The trade union has not really begun to carry out the responsibilities assigned to it, and perhaps will not begin to do it. It has gone into retreat. That is what the workers say.We have to invest our money in the mine or it will die, but who is going to invest when all the talk is of mounting debts and of bankruptcy. Nobody knows anything about privatisation, there is complete silence. We selected the first variant which would allow us to live comfortably in terms of supplies. But other enterprises, where there are also clever people, chose the second variant, to have control of production. This is the most important thing, to control production. We wanted to reconsider, but the train had left. Privatisation is ridiculous when we depend on state subsidies, which vary day to day.Workers do not trust the administration, and they have no information about privatisation, so they assume that it will be the same old thing, they will be cheated again. The director is a businessman. He invested in various subsidiary enterprises with all sorts of promises, but we hear less and less about them, so people think they have been cheated. Raspadskaya produces five times as much coal as us with the same number of people and they are up the spout, so what chance is there for us?The question of pay is difficult. Earlier was the struggle for production and we made some modifications. But now it has gone too far. When we made changes we moved to a semi-contract system. But now people are not told what they are working for. The norms have no real basis, nobody looks at them. Need to link with enrichment factory because they make big profits, but they do not want to.At the moment it is more profitable to have more people. This would not happen on section self financing. With privatisation we will elect our president and there will have to be some kind of workers’ control. Like at Vakhrusheva, there they have a payment system that everyone is happy withManagement made a mistake with the 1st March strike in increasing pay, because then everyone gets the idea that you go on strike and you get more money. They should have explained it all at the meeting on 28th, and if they had been planning to raise wages they should have announced it then.`Unemployment will occur, and then there will be a struggle to find work and then there will be discipline and everything.’

`The brigades were once the leading lights, they produced a lot of coal, it was impossible to get a job in the section. And if you got a job a disciplinary violation was considered to be like a death sentence, you immediatley lost material and moral goods. Although the director now says that we are moving to a market economy, we have still not felt it. They tell us that Shevyakova has been cut — underground workers by 700 — where have they gone? Well they have gone to Raspadskaya, they are recruiting there, so there is somewhere to got. But if there was nowhere to go. Well! Things would be different …’

28.9.93 Interview with Lyubova Ivanova, in Uvykhmin’s department

I am the only person left in the department. Margarita has gone to Yuzhnyi Kuzbass because we were afraid that we would be first in the line for redundancy. Now I am working on privatisation. The director in his farewell speech said that he had made a big mistake, inflating the staff.Uvykhmin is not deputy director for personnel management as well as president of the STK and president of the AOO Imidzh. This is a transitional structure. Several of these AOOs will then be founders of the brick factory.

29.9.93 Trade union president Gusev, N.I.We only deal with pay conflicts if an application is addressed to us. The Soviet of the enterprises takes all the decisions. This comprises the director. Chief economist, chief energy supply, chief of section 4, deputy director for AKhCh, deputy director for personnel,head fo the social department, Kamenetskii, three workers who are NPG members and Gusev. Commission for working out the collective agreement has wight members, four from each union. Coefficients not confirmed by the union, but by STK. I wanted important questions to be looked at jointly, but Uvykhmin objected and got hysterical because we had proposed it. [Obviously no love lost here. Perhaps director plays around with social department, NPG because union so crap??] He says that he will never work with the trade union. We put this into the new collective agreement. In 1993 we did not adopt a collective agreement - we kept the old one. And now I am preparing amendments with Kamenetskii. I myself demanded that I should be on the soviet of the enterprise. The STK should not exist. On the Soviet of the enterpirse both trade unions should be represented in equal numbers. I agreed to this because who benefits from a confrontation? Golubkin gave several millions to NPG. I wanted to find out how much so that he could give us the same amount. And now we are united and they have begun to repeat what we say. In 1991 we lived without a collective agreement.New director seems uninterested in the trade union. Works with Alekseev and Ukhmin.

i On the attitude of workers’ leaders’ wives to their activism see Ye.B. Gruzdeva, ‘Otnoshenie shakhterskikh semei k uchastnikam rabochego dvizheniya’, in Shakhterskoe dvizhenie, Moscow, 1992, Volume Two, 296–309.

5.04.93 S.E. Alekseev, head of social department, former prokhodchik

Three people work in the department. It is mainly concerned with barter. This used to be handled by social organisations, but they were responsible for nothing. It is done on a computer, but it has no hard disk and is unreliable. Also distribute shares. And look after pensioners, invalids, families of the dead. Main conflict are over delays. People have three days in which to buy their allocation in the shop. They don’t buy it and then come moaning that they had to get the money together. Barter goods are distributed around the shops and subdivisions according to a coefficient, which determines their share of the currency. But if large goods come in the small subdivisions complain that they cannot afford them. They have to save up, or get money from a husband or borrow. But really need a better system where people can order what they want. Most mines this is done by a commercial department, but we closed ours down. But this department was established to resolve conflict? Yes, but the thing is that here we constantly create these bodies. I don’t know who drew up this structure. I understood in the course of my work that this schema had to be changed a little. Probably will take on problem of housing. The mine has created a company to build cottages at Sosnovka (Shityagin), but problem of their allocation.

Olga: Conflict in Lenin mine This conflict took place in october 1992 in Lenin mine inshop 1. This shop was formed in the January,1992 when twoshops-number 1 and number 7 were united. It should bementioned that the workers from shop 7 couldn't run thecomplex of the type, that was used here well, because theydidn't run (operate) this type of complex for some years.So,they have lost their skills in some degree. In august the team ofthis shop was ordered to finish thedrift 5-3-1-0. Another team worked in this drift.They prepareda new drift for themselves ahead of shedule and moved there.Shop 1 team was to finish this drift in september. One part ofthe team should finish the drift and another part prepare anew one drift. So they worked in two places simultaneously.Finishing the drift is a difficult work. It's more difficultto get coal in this period because the workers should do a lotof additional work. Usually pay level dicline during thisperiod and workers try to have vacation or sick leaves. About40 workers were absent. The brigadir (team leader) had hisvacation too. The plan and pay level were determined for september andthere were no disputes on it. The team didn't fulfill the planand they got 9200 roubles per person (avarage pay).They shouldget 32000 roubles if they fulfill the plan.Septembers' paylevel was so small, that the workers began to dispute. Themade the chief of the shop (underground manager) go the thedirector of the mine and try to get more money. The chief of

the shop was appointed to the post when the two shops werejoint> He was a young (about 30 years) and inexperiencedperson. So it was difficult for him to bargin with thedirector. The brigadir had bad relations with the director,because the director didn't like his commercial activity ( Hebought the barter things- leather coat,TV-sets and so on) fromthe collegues and sold it. Still, he could influence thesituation but he had his vacation. At the beginning of Octoberthe workers got their pay-slips and after that theypractically stoped working. They didn't declare a strike,theywent underground but they got practically no coal. There was arepair work done mainly. At this period the workers asked the Chair-man of Labourcollective council to help them to get more money. He came tothe shop with the chief economist and they checked all thedocuments and told the workers that the pay was made accordingthe norms and agreement and they couln't get more money. The workers organized the team meeting and asked thedirector to come. He didn't come but sent production manager(Shtern) instead. I was present at this meeting. Most claims during themeeting were made by the man, who was team leader in the shop7, before the shops were united. Now he works ar a skilledface-worker (GROZ).He was supported by the workers from bothshops. The workers told that the repair work was verydifficult and they got practically no money for it. Shtern answered that he visited the drift and he saw,that the workers didn't work good, some of them turned off thelight and slept in the working place. They also made a lot ofmistakes while running cutting mashine (complex) and that iswhy there were a lot of breakages and repair work. The chiefof the shop kept silence. One of the workers even askedhim:"Will you tell something,please?" But it seemed he hadnothing to say. No desition was taken in the meeting and theworkers begat to leave it. The drift should be finished due technological conditionsin a very short period, but the team told, they won't be ableto finish it in october. The directore of the mine decided to use all members ofthe team in a new drift, and to form a new team to finish thisdrift. He asked two team leaders from other shops to do it butthey didn"t agree. One of them had a difficult situation inits own shop and the other didn't want to be involved in theconflict. Then the director recalled from vacation Ibragimov,team leader from another shop and asked him to form a team tofinish the drift. He promised to pay well and give barterrefrigirator. Ibragimov invited the best workers from his ownshop and 14 workers from shop 1. Then he invited a supervisorand mechanich he wanted. There were 41 members in this mixedteam-7 craftsmen, 2 unskilled workers-to carry the wooden

pieces, a supervisor, who was at the same time shift leaderand could run the complex,mechanic and others were skilledface-workers. (GROZ)This mixed team did all repair work duringtwo shifts and began cutting coal at the first day of theirwork. They finished this drift very quikly and returned totheir working places. Then the director asked us to assess the skilles of theworkers, supervisors and managers of the shop 1. Then there was a large meeting at the dhop. It wasdirector's initiative. The director, production manager, chiefeconomist, personnel manager chair-man of the LabourCollective Council, chief of the shop, 2 supervisors and 45workers were present. Shtern again scolded the workers. Thenthe director told in a very calm voice that the situation inthe team is difficult and that's why he desided to appoint anew chief of the shop and new brigadir. He has no right toappoint a new brigadir, because it is the team that shoulddeside. But he has the right to appoint the chief of theshop's assistant. So de does it. This assistant will fulfillbrigadir's functions. I have forgotten to mention the interesting point. A newpay system was introuduced not long before the conflict. Oneof its conditions was that if the plan was not carried out,the team will get just tariff.There were some situations inthe other shops when the plan was not fulfilled but they gotmore money then according to tariff. It happened for the firsttime that the team have got just a tariff. They were warnedthat they should get tariff only but they didn't belive it.This shop didn't fulfill the plan for two months already(output was 90% of the plan) but still they got the avaragepay-level. So when they saw the pay slips, it was a shock forthem. Here are points of vew of some peope, who took part inthis conflict. Uvychmin (chair-man of the Labour collective council): Ididn't went into details because I was busy taking part in theworking out the conditions of privatization. I looked throughdocuments and order book. There was no administration fault.There was bad work organization. There was a breakage and ittook 3 days to repair it, but nobody was punished. All workersof the shift had the coefficient 1,0 (the assement of theirwork). To tell the truth I didn't want to take part in theconflict. I didn"t want to substitute trate union. It'strade-union functioon to deal with conflicts. Shtern (production manager): The team didn't work for half month. They just slept ordiscussed that they wouldn"t work in this drift. Komplex wasdistroyed. They gave 110-120 tones per day only. The chief ofthe shop didn't ask for additional workers.. They gave only5000 tones only in september. I told director- don't give them

money. One third of the workers took the vacations. Among them22 skilled face workers. The chief if the shop sholdn"t allowit at the period of finishing the drift. They are to lay therails (ways), installate conveyor, connect up hydrolics andelectricity in the drift. There was also a lot of deliverywork. Chies of the shop 1: When the shops were joined 50workers were removed to other shops and the plain was the sameas for two shops. It was impossible to fulfill the plan. The reaction of the workers of shop 1 towards those whowent to mixed team: They called them strikebreakers or toldthem- you should stay with us. There is a work for you here.Those, who went to mixed team answered-go to hell.You preventme from earning money and I want to get it. It was the part ofthe team who worked hard but got the avarage pay level. Andnow they could show what they could do. Ibragimov (brigadir of the mixed team): I liked the paysystem (conditions of pay) which we werw offered whilefinishing the drift. We were given 2560 thousand roubles for41 people. We organized our work as we wanted. All of us weresatisfied. We knew what we were working for The dispute between mixed team brigadir and new appointedshop 1 brigadir:-Could shop 1 do this work themselves?-No. The way they worked they shouldn't finish it in two months-Why? -There was a wrong complex running. -They got 8 thousand roubles for 3 months. -Not 3, but 1 month. -If they were payed the same amount of money they coulddo this work . -You have forgotten, they were offered this money. -Really? Then I keep silence. -There was just the ordinary drift. Good, I should say.There were some breakes, but we have repared it. The workersof shop 1 told, that they did just the same, but the resultswere different (they confermed that theit skills were non asgood as the mixed team' worker') DISCRIPTION OF WORKING PLACE SKILLED FACE WORKER During 2,3, and 4 shifts he usually moves the timberingsections. I have discribed the working day of the face workerduring first shift (repair shift) 6 a.m.-getting the order from the chief of the shop(sometimes from the supervisor) 6.15-changing the clothes6getting the lamps,self-saversand equipment to measure the metan (gas) level in the

atmosphere. Then he goes down and takes the train. 7-7.30- walking from the end station to the drift. Thenhe does the following kinds of work: -drift drive head cleaning, -timbering bolt moving, -combine teeth (cogs) changing -pockets cleaning -ways cleaning -combine (coal cutting machine) testing. After all machanisms are tested and everything is readyfor the next shidt he goes up. At 1.30 p.m. the work is over. DRIFTER Main functions are- drift drilling, mountain pulpdispaching, drift timbering,putting on the rails, increasing(making longer) the conveyor, increasing the pipes, increasingthe ventilation pipes. Discription of the working day: 3.30-3.50 p.m.- getting the order 3.50-4.00 changing the clothes 4-4.30- getting to the workplace 4.45-7.20- mountain mass (pulp) dispatching ( shipping)out from the drift. 7.30-9.15- carring the metal timbering to the drift,afrer that drift timbering. 9.25-10.00- carring metal belters to the drift 10.10-11.00 -belting the timbering 11- 11.30- way out pf pit. THE OPERATOR OF THE COAL CUTTING MACHINE The main function is the coal cutting machine operating.He also should watch after the timbering sections, roofing,connectionns and so on. He must repair the machine if it isbroken.