Passport of the Russian trade-union movement. Olga Vinokurova

FNPR, VKT and KTR are the largest trade-union associations working in the territory of the Russian Federation and covering all industrial branches of Russia.

FNPR.Basic principles of action of FNPR.Federation of Independent Trade unions of Russia (FNPR) is a voluntary democratic association of the all-Russian trade unions and territorial trade union associations, created with the purpose of coordination and consolidation of their activity for the protection of the rights and interests of workers created on the basis of the principle of freedom of association.

The FNPR Charter was adopted by the Founding Congress of trade unions of RSFSR on March 23, 1990. Changes and additions were introduced on September 19, 1990, on October 28, 1993, on December 7, 1996 and on November 30, 2001 in subsequent FNPR congresses.

The IVth (most recent) FNPR Congress took place in Moscow on November 28-30 20011 and defined the basic principles of action of FNPR as:

Social partnership, economic democracy, collective actions, independence.2

Social partnership (responsible cooperation on the basis of concluded contracts and agreements between employers or their representatives, executive authorities or their representatives and trade unions) is the most effective mechanism of maintenance of social stability and progressive development of society on the basis of the maximal account of the interests of participants.

By means of the conclusion of general agreements, FNPR aspires to influence the formation of a social policy of the state corresponding to the fundamental interests of workers.

Economic democracy consists in the observance of the principle according to which all questions in the sphere of production should be resolved taking into account the opinion and with the direct participation of those whom they concern. Competitiveness and production efficiency grow, if workers interestedly participate in the decision of problems of the enterprise of an industrial, economic and social character. If employers (or their representatives) or executive powers (or their representatives) evade negotiations, conduct them unconstructively or deliberately do not

1804 delegates took part in the congress. Chairmen of primary trade-union organizations, a number of heads of republican, krai and oblast’ trade union organizations, veterans of the trade-union movement, heads of trade unions and trade-union associations which are not member organizations of FNPR, representatives of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, members of the Government, Council of the Federation, deputies of the State Duma, heads of administration of some subjects of the Russian Federation, heads of Moscow and the Moscow oblast’, representatives of associations of employers and businessmen, establishments of science and culture and religious faiths were invited. Representatives of 59 national trade union centres from 53 countries and 10 international trade-union organizations took part in the congress as visitors. 135 representatives of the mass-media were accredited to the congress. 2 From the program document of FNPR adopted at the IVth congress of FNPR 29.11.2001.

carry out a prior agreement, the trade unions should be ready to provide a resolute rebuff to encroachments on the interests of workers.

For this purpose they use collective actions, including pickets, meetings, strikes and other forms of struggle which are not contradictory to the law, down to a national strike. The major conditions of effectivenss of collective actions are solidarity, reasonableness of positions, legality and publicity.

Reasonableness of positions, a precise plan of action and their legality and publicity are obligatory during the preparation and carrying out of collective actions. The trade-union organizations which are included in FNPR, widely informing the public about the reasons for the labour conflict, aim to not allow their discrediting and to avoid illegal actions which, finally, harm the purposes of the movement.

Independence is a principle which assumes the responsibility of trade unions only before the law and their members, excludes the possibility of influence of political parties and movements, religious concessions, employers and authorities on decision-making.

FNPR considers inexpedient the division of trade unions on the basis of orientation to various political parties, no less than merging with power structures. Participating in the political life of society, FNPR does not consider the struggle for government as its purpose. Participation in the political life of society for FNPR is not end in itself, but only a means for the more effective resolution of its tasks and its social destiny as representative and defender of the interests of hired workers.

Both the purposes of FNPR, and those principles on which its activity is based, do not depend only on today’s needs, but concern the trade-union movement as a whole.

Structure and apparatus of the Federation.

The Federation consists of its member organizations (the all-Russian, inter-regional trade unions and territorial associations of trade union organizations).

The apparatus of the Federation comprises:

Congress of the Federation, General Council of the Federation, Executive Committee of the Federation, Chairman of the Federation, Auditing-control Commission of the Federation.

The Congress is the supreme governing body of the Federation. It is convoked by the General Council as required, but not less often than once every five years. (At the IVth Congress of FNPR the term of appointment of governing bodies of the federation was changed. Before the term of appointment of governing bodies was four years.)

The General Council is the permanent governing body of the Federation during the period between Congresses. The General Council is formed by direct delegation of two representatives from each trade union and one representative from each territorial association of trade union organizations. The term of appointment of the General Council is five years.

The Executive Committee is an elected collective body of Federation which carries out the current management of the activity of the Federation. The Executive Committee is elected by the General Council under the decision of Congress on the basis of equal representation from trade unions and territorial associations of trade union organizations from among the members of the General Council recommended for membership of the Executive Committee by the member organizations of the Federation and their associations (associations, councils of chairmen, other associations).

The Chairman of the Federation is responsible for carrying out authorized tasks, decisions of the Congress, the General Council and the Executive committee and is accountable to Congress and the General Council.

Auditing-control Commission is established to monitor the financial and economic activity of the Federation, the organizations founded by it, calculation and receipt of member and other payments, correctness of expenditure of money resources and the use of the property of the Federation.It also has a term of appointment of five years.

Membership.As of 1.01.20043 FNPR had 122 member organizations, including 43 all-Russian, inter-regional trade unions and 79 territorial associations of trade union organizations with a total membership of 30.6 million. Including trade unions cooperating with FNPR on the basis of agreements, the there are a total of 31.8 million members. FNPR claims a membership density of 81.7%, and trade union membership as a proportion of those employed in all forms of economic activity amounts to 52.1 %.

Dynamics of reported membership of FNPR Date Membership Density (% of

employed)

I Congress: September 1990 54 million 70 per cent

II Congress: October 1993 60 million 86 per cent

III Congress: December 1996 45 million 69 per cent

June 1999 37 million 58 per cent

November 1999 34 637 700 54 per cent

January 2002 36.9 million 51 per cent

January 2004 31.8 million

The member organizations of FNPR comprise:

- 243.8 thousand primary trade-union organisations;

- 1474 Republican, krai, oblast’, road, basin organisations;

- 9496 city, raion organizations.

As is obvious from the data above, the number of trade union members and of FNPR primary trade-union organizations continues to decrease every year. The exception was over the period 2000-2001 when FNPR included the Mining-Metallurgical Trade Union (GNPR) and the Trade Union of Railway Workers and Transport Builders, and also the Council of trade unions of the Chechen Republic renewed its activity.

3 Hereinafter the information on the number of FNPR members is based on the basis of the Resolution of the Executive committee of FNPR №2-8 of 19.05.2004г «On the summary statistical reporting of trade-union membership and trade-union bodies for 2003». The data on trade-union membership for 2004 will be accessible in April - May, 2005.

Year Total number of members of trade unions (thousands)

Number of primary trade-union organizations

2000 34802,1 267565

2001 36901,2 265167

2002 36200,1 253435

2003 30619,3 243750

The table shows that the number of trade union members fell by more than 6 million between 2001 and 2003, and the number of primary trade-union organizations fell by 8.7% over the same period.

The following all-Russian, inter-regional trade unions saw a membership reduction of more than 20% over 2003:

Workers of the radio-electronic industry – 26.1 %,

Workers of enterprises with foreign investments – 21.7 %,

Workers in textiles and light industry – 21.1 %

But the biggest percentage decrease in number of trade union members took place in the Taimyr Federation of Trade Unions, by 53.2%.

The FNPR leadership considers that there are both subjective and objective reasons for the reduction in the number of trade-union members. According to the Organization Department of FNPR the objective reasons for the reduction are:

1. Bankruptcy and liquidation of enterprises, reduction of number working, a spilling over of labour into the private and shadow sectors of the economy where trade-union organizations, as a rule, are absent.

2. Re-structuring of enterprises, their fragmentation into small enterprises which is accompanied by liquidation of the trade-union organizations.

3. Formation through mass media of a negative opinion of trade unions.4. Anti-trade-union activity of employers which has assumed a mass character.

The subjective reasons are:1. Weak influence of trade unions on social guarantees in society.2. Insufficient protection by trade union committees of the interests of workers in questions

of work guarantees, fair and timely payment of wages and its reliable protection.3. Low skills of trade-union staff, absence of necessary personal qualities among trade

union leaders.4. Lack of the information about the activity of trade unions at all levels.5. Insufficient work of trade unions on the creation of the trade-union organizations,

involving workers in trade unions.

To overcome the tendency to the reduction in the membership base recently more and more member organizations have been carrying out purposeful work to maintain and increase the number of trade union members, creation and restoration of primary trade-union organizations, and strengthening the motivation of trade-union membership.

This has led to some increase in the number of members of some trade union organizations in 2003 such as:

Trade union of workers of enterprises of the food-processing industry and production co-operatives of the Russian Federation (by 7 %),

The all-Russian trade union of workers and employees of the Navy (4 %),

The Russian trade union of art workers (2,4 %).

And also:

Lipetsk Oblast’ Federation of trade unions (8.3 %),

Altai Republic Council of trade unions (7 %),

Irkutsk Oblast’ Council of trade unions (7 %),

Astrakhan regional association of trade union organizations (6.1 %) and a number of others.

1.6 million new members were recruited in 2003, which was 82 thousand less than in 2002, but 97.3 thousand more than in 2001.

In eight member organizations of FNPR the density of trade-union membership increased.

Work on the creation and restoration of primary trade-union organizations proceeds. In 2003 more than 4.6 thousand new primary trade-union organizations were established. The greatest increase in number was in the organizations of the all-Russian trade unions of the military (45.0 %) workers of the security service of the Russian Federation (13.6 %) and a number of others.

Of the 30.6 million members of FNPR trade unions in 2003:

- Workers – 25.5 million (83.3 %);

- Students and pupils – 3 million (9.8 %);

- Non-working pensioners – 2.1 million (6.9 %).

In 2003 there were 16.9 thousand full-time elected trade union officers at all levels, including:

Chairmen of the shop trade-union organizations – 5.3 %,

Chairmen of primary trade-union organizations – 51.5 %,

Chairmen of city, raion organizations of trade unions – 16.6 %,

Chairmen of the republican, krai, oblast organizations of trade unions – 7.6 %.

4.3 million people were members of trade-union committees, auditing and other commissions of primary trade-union organizations, shop trade-union committees (trade-union bureaux) and trade union groups during the same period.

Among the trade-union activists were 2.7 million women (62.4 %) and 810 thousand young people (18.9 %).

Age and gender structure of membership of FNPR.

Young people up to the age of 35 in 2003 accounted for 9.1 million trade union members (29.7 % of the total). This was 3.8 % more than in 2002.

Young people head 31.2 % of trade-union groups,

13.9 % - shop trade-union organizations,

16.3 % - the primary trade-union organizations,

4.4 % - city, raion,

0,6 % - republican, krai, oblast’ and so forth.

Judging by the data from the organization department of FNPR, the higher the status of a trade-union organization, the fewer young people are represented among its leadership. Moreover, it is obvious that the definition of "young people" in FNPR differs from the young age standard in Russia (up to 30) by 5 years.

The problem of "ageing" of the trade-union staff has often been noted by sociologists and is admitted leaders by FNPR leaders.

« We are the public organization uniting hired workers, that means first of all people of working age. Therefore it is logical, that the leader of the Federation should corresponded to its basic contingent, to those whom the organization protects and represents. We do not thrust this norm on the member organizations though we consider it is necessary, to reflect on disturbing symptoms of ageing of trade union cadres. It is especially unpleasant against the background of the rejuvenation of the state apparatus and heads of corporations that is clearly taking shape» (From speech of Chairman of FNPR, M. Shmakov, to delegates of the IVth congress of FNPR).

To overcome the situation that is arising FNPR has adopted the Idea of a Youth Policy. As the leaders of FNPR assert, there has recently been a real turn of member organizations to the problem of attraction of youth to the trade unions. They have begun to conduct on a regular basis conferences, round tables, seminars on questions of the motivation of trade-union membership among young people and their involvement in the trade-union movement. Among the member organizations, commissions and councils for work with young people have been established. The most recent examples:

28.10.2004 was the first meeting of youth activists of the All-Russian trade union of life-support,

On November, 28, 2004 was an Inter-regional seminar «Forms and directions of work with youth »,

On November, 30, 2004 was a Seminar for the future leaders of trade unions and chairmen of youth councils of Nizhniy Novgorod oblast’,

On December, 01, 2004 was the second Youth trade-union forum of the Kaliningrad regional federation of trade unions4.

The majority of members of trade unions are women. In 2003 women comprised 17.2 million trade union members (56.1% of the total); 3.4% more than in 2002. However the representation of women in elected trade-union bodies is proportionally not enough.

Women head:

65.8 % of trade-union groups,

56.4 % of shop trade-union organizations.

72.6 % of primary trade-union organizations,

66.4 % of the city, raion organizations,

53.4 % of city, raion coordination councils of trade union organizations,

37 % republican, krai, oblast’.

7 % (three women) of heads of all-Russian, inter-regional trade unions

and (6.4 %) five women lead territorial associations of trade union organizations.

For development proposals and implement measures to provide equality of women the FNPR General Council has established a Permanent Commission on questions of the social equality of women.

Training.

For the first time in the history of the trade-union movement in 2000 there was an International Forum on trade-union training. In structure FNPR there are two higher education institutions – the Academy of Labour and Social Relations which was certificated by UNESCO in 2000 in the highest international category, and the St.-Petersburg Humanitarian Trade Union University. In addition there are 45 regional training centres.

In 2003 370 trade union officers underwent professional retraining;

37.3 thousand trade-union activists have increased their skills through programmes of 72 hours or more;

1,051 thousand people underwent vocational training at short-term seminars;

451.5 thousand person were trained at schools for trade-union activists. Thus, about 1,5 million trade-union officers and activists have been involved in all forms of training, which amounts to 35% of the total number.

On average 3.4% of the budgets of member organizations were spent on training in 2003.

The following trade unions were most active in providing trade union training:

Trade union of workers of national education and science of the Russian Federation,

Trade union of workers of trade, public catering, consumers' cooperative societies and business,

The Russian trade union of workers of chemical industries and a number of others.

4Official site FNPR http://fnpr.org.ru/

Territorial associations of trade union organizations of Bryansk, Irkutsk, Kaliningrad, Perm’, Saratov, Tambov, Tula, Chelyabinsk oblast’i, Republics of Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Chuvashia, Moscow City and Primorski Krai.

Financial policy of FNPR.According to the FNPR Charter, the financial assets of the Federation comprise the payments of the member organizations, transfers for authorized activity, donations, incomes of organizations belonging to the Federation or founded with its participation, of actions undertaken and other receipts not forbidden by the law.

The size and the order of payment of membership dues FNPR are established by decisions of the General Council and amount to a 2% deduction from the total sum of the dues paid by members of the trade union.The order of distribution of membership dues inside FNPR is determined by congresses of trade the unions, and has not changed recently:

- 75 % - the primary trade-union organizations;- 20 % - middle levels (raion and regional branch associations);- 2-3 % - territorial associations of trade unions;- 2-3% - national branch trade unions and FNPR.

For FNPR the question of financial discipline has become urgent. The Federation regularly monitors the payment of membership dues. The FNPR General Council has created a Permanent Commission on financial work. During the period between the III and IV FNPR Congresses the Permanent Commission held 20 sessions on questions of financial activity. The Commission has passed a number of resolutions relating to particular member organizations, regularly not paying membership dues to the Federation. As a result member organizations: the Association of trade unions of working cooperative enterprises, the Federation of trade unions of law-enforcement bodies and the Federation of branch trade unions of Stavropol Krai have been excluded from membership of FNPR. FNPR leaders note that, as a result of this work, about 45% of the all-Russian trade unions and up to 90 % of territorial associations of trade union organizations carry out their obligations to pay membership dues to FNPR. The situation with the transfer of membership dues by primary trade-union organizations is worse. As a result, in the opinion of a number of experts, the annual loss to the FNPR budget is about 40 %.

The financial assets of the Federation are spent on the basis of estimates approved by the General Council. The report on the execution of the estimates is presented annually to the General Council.

The analysis of the execution of the expenditure estimate of FNPR for the period between the III and IV congresses shows that5:

up to 9 % of means goes to the Solidarity Fund of FNPR and for international work; up to 8 % - on information and propaganda activity; up to 4 % - on financing of meetings of elected bodies (excluding costs in the years in

which congresses took place); up to 70 % on economic and organizational-technical maintenance. These charges

include expenses of maintenance of office accommodation, on duplication and dispatch of materials, including telephone conversations, the maintenance of motor transport, wages of elected heads and employees of the UOO "FNPR Apparatus".

5 Materials of IV congress of FNPR which took place in Moscow on November, 28-30 2001. http://fnpr.org.ru/FNPRreview_12.htm

FNPR Property.(From the history of the issue)

The transfer of property from the Soviet General Confederation of Trade unions (VKP) to the Federation of Independent Trade unions of Russia was formalized in a Contract which fixed the rights of ownership, use and disposal of trade-union property which was authorized by a Decision of the Executive Committee of VKP on September 22, 1992. According to this Contract, ownership of sanatoria, tourist-excursion and athletic and sports facilities, cultural establishments, office buildings, educational complexes and construction enterprises of a building complex has been fixed on the property right on the territory of Russia was assigned to the Federation.

In total 2582 objects were transferred, including:

- 678 sanatorium complexes;

- 730 tourist-excursion complexes;

- 568 athletic and sports facilities;

- 500 pioneer camps, trade union objects (office buildings), cultural, educational complexes, etc. objects –;

- 106 trade union building complexes.

The cost of these objects at January 1, 1992 prices was 5 billion 319 million roubles, including 2 billion 903 million roubles sanatorium complexes, 1 billion 286 million roubles tourist complexes, 411 million roubles sports buildings and constructions, and other objects (union buildings, trade-union schools, etc.), including uncompleted construction, valued at 719 million roubles.

On April 2 and on August 26, 1992 the Presidium of the Council of the Federation accordingly adopted Decision № 2-8 and Decision № 6-12 which established that the priority organizational-legal form of enterprises and organizations, based on the property of the trade unions, should be joint-stock companies, founded by taking account of the allocation of a share of ownership to labour collectives and regional trade union associations, including branch associations. The Presidium also ratified Regulations on the delimitation of property between all-Russian trade-union and regional trade union associations on the basis of agreements concluded between the Federation and the corresponding regional trade union associations.

Between September 1992 and the end of 1993 alone 72 agreements were drawn up. This process continued over subsequent years so that now agreements have been concluded with all territorial trade union associations. Thus, the property rights have been delimited. At the level of the center the Federation acquired 21.2% of the property, while territorial trade union associations received 78.8%6.

Simultaneously with the delimitation of property rights the Federation organized the management of the property according to the branch principle.

The Presidium of the Council of the Federation by its decisions №№ 5-18, 5-19 and 5-20 of May 20, 1993 concluded contracts and transferred the operational management of the property, and

6 The Federation acquired 32.1% of sanatorium complexes, 16.4 % of tourist complexes and 7% of sports complexes. http://fnpr.org.ru/FNPRreview_14.htm [Note that these are valuations at historic cost, which bear no relation to their commercial value. SC]

also share holdings of the joint-stock and limited liability companies, belonging to the Federation, to economic management bodies in operational and in part in trustee management:

The sanatorium complexes were transferred to the FNPR Sanatorium association (now the Closed Joint-Stock Company SKO FNPR "Profkurort");

The tourist and health complexes to the joint-stock company "TsSTE-INTUR ";

The executive management of the building complex to the concern (now the Closed Joint-Stock Company) "Profstroi".

Apart from this, the Presidium of the Council of the Federation Decision № 1-24 of May 3, 1992 «On the training-sports centers and alpine bases of the trade unions operating on the territory of Russia» transferred a operational management of a number of sports establishments to the Central and other Councils of the athletic-sports society "Russia".

As a result of the transformation of the enterprises of the trade unions into new organizational-legal forms of ownership, the Federation found itself owning less than a quarter share of more than half of the companies created on the basis of the sanatorium complex, and two-thirds of the organizations created on the basis of the tourist enterprises.

This is reflected in the involvement of the Federation both in the management of the companies and the control over their financial and economic activity, and in its ability to influence their decisions on the development of material resources and use of funds. An especially difficult position arose with the management of the share holdings of the Federation in the companies created on the basis of tourist enterprises as at almost 37 % of the companies the shareholding of the Federation fell to 10% or less. These were basically the companies located in Krasnodar krai, Rostov oblast’ and some other places where the FNPR share amounted to only 5% or less. The federation has in practice lost the right to participation in the management of these organizations.

The Executive Committee of the General Council FNPR, with its decisions № 5-10 of July 17, 1997 «On problems in the revival of trade union tourism» and № 3-19 of May 26, 1999 «On the increase in the share of FNPR in the ownership of sanatorium organizations», with the purpose of maintaining the security and improving control over the use of property belonging to the trade unions, the development of internal tourism and strengthening of the positions regional trade union centres in the protection of the property rights, decided to increase the share of FNPR in ownership of tourist and sanatorium establishments to at least 30%.

Simultaneously with the transformation of enterprises into commercial and noncommercial organizations, the trade unions were forced by their difficult financial position to decide sell some of the unprofitable, loss-making or unpromising objects, and also transfer some objects to state or municipal ownership. So, 8.6% by value of the sanatorium and tourist complexes were sold and 11.4 % was transferred to state ownership.

The Federation paid special attention to the restoration of the property rights of trade unions. The right to ownership of such organizations, as "Orelturist", the tourist hotel "Friendship" (Abakan), "Bryanskturist" and its branches, "Lipetskturist", Murmansk Oblast’ Tourism Council, the tour agency "Iriston" and motel "Dar’yal" (Vladikavkaz, Republic of Northern Ossetia - Alaniya), "Omskturist" and the motor depot "Tourist" (Omsk), the Penza Oblast’ Tourism Council and tourist hotel "Swallow" (Penza), Joint-Stock Company "Amurturist" (Blagoveshchensk), BFO "Matsetsa" and the First Resort Polyclinic (Sochi), Rest house "Ryamntsevo" (Moscow oblast’) and other organizations has been restored through the courts.

By 2002 the construction of mineral water bottling factories in the cities of Zheleznovodsk, Essentuki and Sochi has been finished.

Today, according to the general director of the Joint-Stock Company SKO FNPR "Profkurort", the sanatorium complex of trade unions extends to 65 regions of the Russian

Federation - from the Far East to Kaliningrad oblast. It includes more than 500 sanatoria, resorts, boarding houses, rest houses and children's camps. During the period 1997 to 2003 6,5 billion roubles has been spent on reconstruction and major overhaul of accomodation, medical bases, engineering networks and construction, and also on the construction of new objects, strengthening of the hydromineral base and increase in the level of sanatorium services.

The FNPR leadership has been repeatedly subjected to serious criticism from its member organizations for the irrational management of the property of the trade unions. Among the criticisms were the fact that, while having sanatoria 100 % owned by FNPR, it did not give anything to the trade unions, and even had no mechanism of privileges for trade union members. Now they have managed, as before, to give all trade union members a 5% discount on resort vouchers. According to the general director of the Joint-Stock Company SKO FNPR "Profkurort", this is only the first step. FNPR has insisted for a long time insists on that a part of the cost of vouchers should be paid by a supplement to the prices of goods so that every Russian will be guaranteed an annual rest in the country’s resorts.

Mutual relations with alternative trade unions of the Russian Federation, international and foreign trade-union organizations.

With a view to joint representation and coordination of actions for the protection of the rights and social and economic interests of workers, FNPR cooperates with trade unions and trade-union associations which are not included in the FNPR structure, but which support the basic aims and tasks of the Federation. FNPR cooperates with five trade unions and with the KRP trade union association on the basis of agreements, working towards their joining the FNPR structure as full members.

The leaders of FNPR do not consider VKT and KTR to be alternative hostile trade-union associations, and relates to them as social partners.

FNPR maintains contacts with the trade union centres of more than 100 countries. 19 member organizations of FNPR are members of the International trade-union secretariats.

The All-Russia Confederation of Labour (VKT).

Brief historical information.

VKT was established at its Founding Congress on August 12 1995 in the city of Yekaterinburg7. Large trade unions which were not a part of FNPR took part in the creation of the trade union centre: The Independent Miners Union, the Ural Trade-Union Center, Inter-Regional Association of Trade Unions "Solidarity", Confederation of Labour of Kuzbass, the Russian Trade Union of Metalworkers, the Russian Trade Union of Public Service Workers, the Russian Trade Union of Engineers and Technical Workers, the Russian Trade Union of Medical Workers, the Trade Union of Drivers of City Passenger Transport. Apart from this, in 1996-97 the following all-Russian trade unions were established within the framework of VKT: the Russian Trade Union of Teachers and the Free Trade Union of Light Industry Workers, and also regional associations in Rostov, Taimyr, Krasnoyarsk, Samara oblasts and the Komi Republics. Alexander Sergeev, chairman of the Independent Miners Union, was elected President of VKT and Dmitry Semenov as General Secretary. Congress adopted a Program and Charter and representatives of the all-7 VKT and KTR were initially created, as as a single trade union association, so both consider the date of their formation to be 12.04.1995. But certain contradictions appeared between the leaders of the trade-union movement, including over the appointment of the president of KTR. As a result of the contradiction it split into two trade union associations: KTR and VKT.

Russian trade unions and regional trade union centres signed the Declaration on the Establishment of VKT.

VKT was only registered with the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation in the spring of 1996.

In 1998, the trade union of health workers, which had been simultaneously a member of another organization, SOTsPROF, left VKT, although a number of the organizations of that trade union kept their membership of regional branches of VKT. The other all-Russian trade unions in VKT, which were simultaneously members of SOTsPROF (metalworkers, public service workers, engineers and technical workers, city passenger transport drivers) in February 1998, having held their own conferences and decided to cease their membership of SOTsPROF.

The Second Congress of VKT took place on February 20 1998 in Chelyabinsk. At the Congress the charter was significantly amended. A number of new organizations were accepted into membership. According to one of the amendments, the post of General Secretary of VKT was abolished. The Congress reelected Alexander Sergeev as President and elected Andrey Efremenko and Anatoly Ivanov as Vice-Presidents.

In March 1998, at a joint conference, the Russian Trade Union of Public Service Workers, the Russian Trade Union of Light Industry, the Trade Union of City Passenger Transport Drivers and the Trade union of Teachers of Russia decided to amalgamate as the Russian Trade Union of Public Service Workers.

In the course of protest actions in the summer and autumn of 1998 a number of new member organizations joined VKT, among the most active of which is the Trade Union of Workers of the Moscow Underground. Apart from this, regional associations of VKT have been created in many subjects of the Russian Federation.

In the summer of 1999, the congress of the Independent Miners Union elected a new chairman – Edward Kinstler, after which A. Sergeev resigned as President of VKT has voluntary combined from itself presidential powers and A. Efremenko was appointed Acting President of VKT.

In December 1999 VKT was admitted to the structure of the Russian Tripartite Commission on the Regulation of Social-Labour Relations. VKT took part in the development and signing of the General Agreement between trade unions of Russia, employers associations and the Government of the Russian Federation.

On April 22 2000 the III Congress took place in Moscow. There were more than 70 delegates and representatives of international trade-union organizations, academic and scientific centres, mass media, and KTR also participated in it. The Congress discussed the directions of further development of the organization and adopted a resolution “On the priorities of VKT”. The Congress elected Alexander Bugaev, who had previously been the Chairman of the VKT Council, President of VKT and Anatoly Ivanov and Nikolay Shtyrkov, First Vice-President of the Independent Miners Union, as Vice-Presidents. After the III Congress, the VKT Council elected A. Efremenko as its Chairman.

Congresses of VKT are convoked not less often than every three years.

The priority directions of activity of VKT.

According to the VKT secretary for international relations, they are:

The struggle for wages, for their level and timeliness of payment, and also the struggle for jobs. Apart from this, the leaders of VKT stress the necessity of carrying out work on strengthening public self-identification and trade-union building (development of VKT structures in the regions, strengthening of financial discipline).

Membership.Member organizations of VKT operate in 80 subjects of the Russian Federation. At the regional level, there are 40 regional organizations. VKT claims to have 1,270,900 members.

Trade-union training.

1% of the central budget is allocated for trade-union training . The costs of carrying out actions by VKT member organizations are offset against their membership dues. In VKT there is a group of trade-union trainers.

At present VKT does not participate in any international programs of trade-union training.

Distribution of membership dues.

VKT is constructed according to federal principles. Dues in the member organizations are accumulated differentially. The payment of the member organizations to VKT is 5%.

VKT, like other trade union associations, experiences difficulties with the receipt of membership dues. According to the leaders of VKT, the deficit of membership dues is 35-40 %.

The reasons of this situation are said to be: the low level of wages of members of VKT, existing debts for wages and other non-payments. Morevoer, in the opinion of the leaders of VKT, there are specific problems of so-called alternative trade unions, where there is a problem of recognition of VKT as organizations. There are still primary organizations which struggle for recognition of the legal status of the organization. They are compelled for many years to collect and account for membership dues manually.

However, in the view of the international secretary of VKT, this is not the real problem of financing the trade-union hierarchy. VKT, as well as FNPR, has adopted the scheme of payment of membership dues from the Soviet trade unions, where the primary organization retained the majority of funds, part was transferred to the regional organization and then transferred upward.

«Now we have an inverted triangle. From our point of view everything should be the other way round. We might achieve this, if we take in the experience of the advanced countries when 100 % of a membership dues are transferred to the central trade-union bodies. A general trade union budget is created. It is clear how much money there is, how many units should receive wages, what directions of activity demand financing. Inside the trade-union democracy processes all this, determines the basic directions of redistribution of funds, and thus there is a uniform budget which can be planned. But this variant arouses objections all the time. It is very difficult to part with money. It is very difficult to receive it, especially, if something is not fully worked out, it is even more difficult. It is a question of serious thought about trade-union building, a question of personnel selection, opportunities to influence the primary, regional organizations. For us it is hard. Ours is a big the country. And we have a specific type of people, who came from the strike committees. Everything is fixed, everything is personalities! It is even harder than in FNPR».

Attitudes to KTR and FNPR.In February 2000 VKT and the Confederation of Labour of Russia (KTR) created a Coordination Council of the two organizations. The purpose of the Coordination Council was the creation of a legal, ideological and organizational base for the association of the two organizations in a single all-Russian trade union centre. The necessity of such an association had been established in decisions of joint bodies of both confederations. It is expected that in the near future the process of association will be completed.

VKT, with the participation of KTR, publishes the all-Russian newspaper “Объединенная профсоюзная газета [United Trade-Union Newspaper]”. A number of VKT regional structures have their own publications.

Leaders of VKT remark that they relate to FNPR, as to the largest association of trade unions in Russia, as to a fully valued subject of the trade-union movement. Such an attitude became possible because FNPR has made big strides in the internal reform of its structure. It is noted that FNPR has very serious, positive changes in its branch organizations and undertakes serious actions for the social and economic protection of its members. VKT rates quite highly the sectoral agreements concluded by FNPR in a number of branches (chemicals, oil, mining).

On the other hand, VKT leaders see and understand the problems of FNPR (there is a middle trade-union layer where people sit for 20-35 years and brake all processes of improvement which are initiated by the primary organizations, the leaders of branch trade unions and FNPR). In the opinion of the VKT leaders, the internal problems of FNPR have determined «the flabby political position of FNPR, and those concessions which FNPRhad to make in acceptance of the Labour Code, the question of the monetisation of benefits and the change of the pension system » (From interview with International Secretary of VKT).

But, nevertheless, in VKT they realize that FNPR is «the largest player on the trade-union field» in Russia. They also understand that neither VKT, nor KTR are yet in a condition to work overy many questions and positions as fundamentally and scrupulously as does FNPR.

FNPR, VKT and KTR cooperate both in work in the Tripartite Commission and at the international level, and also try to realize joint projects in the regions. But this does not work out everywhere and always. Leaders of all the trade union associations note that relations of partnership develop, first of all, at the central level. In the regions and at the enterprises the relations between trade union leaders can be intense. As an example, the situation in the coal industry has resulted: the existence of two trade unions (Rosugleprof and NPG) who have had very tense relations with one another for 15 years. The result is that neither of them has a normal tariff agreement.

VKT is member organization of the ICFTU and a number of national trade union centres. A number of the member organizations are members of Global Union Federations.

Confederation of Labour of Russia (KTR).Brief historical information.

The Founding Congress of KTR took place on April 12 1995. Some of the largest Russian trade unions took part in its creation: the Federation of Air Traffic Controllers’ Trade Unions of Russia, the Russian Dockers Trade Union, the Russian Trade Union of Railway Locomotive Brigades, the Russian Trade Union of Seamen, Association of Flying Crews, and also regional trade union associations – "Spravedlivost’" (Saint Petersburg) and the Yekaterinburg Association of Trade Unions. Later the Confederation of Labour of Saint Petersburg and Leningrad oblast’, Confederation of Free Transport Trade Unions and the Russian Confederation of Free Trade Unions (RKSP) joined KTR. Tambov, Ryazan, Kursk, Arkhangelsk, Primor’e and Tula regional branches have been created within the framework of KTR.

To achieve the greatest effectiveness of its activity, KTR participates in the Tripartite Agreement between the all-Russian associations of trade unions, the all-Russian associations of employers and the Government of the Russian Federation, directed at the development of coordinated policy in the fields of work, employment and the protection of workers’ interests.

On April 24 2000 KTR signed an agreement to collaborate with the Federal Labour Inspectorate of the Ministry of Labour and Social Development of the Russian Federation to monitor the observance of labour legislation and work safety in the organizations and at the enterprises where members of KTR trade-union organizations work.

The priority directions of activity of KTR.

KTR activists protested vigorously against the adoption of the new Labour Code at the time. After its adoption the leaders of the Confederation continued to appeal to international bodies, and in particular lodged a complaint at the ILO. The ILO reported its conclusion that a number of positions of the Labour Code, in particular the procedure for the announcement of a strike, do not correspond to international standards. Now KTR continues to bring pressure to bear on the Government of the Russian Federation with the aim of correcting the positions of the Labour Code and bringing them into conformity with international standards.

Work also continues on questions of social insurance, preservation of jobs and increases in wages. All these questions, in the view of the President of KTR, determine the national security of the state.

« … nobody apart from the trade unions is concerned with questions of national security. There is the question of the social responsibility of business - to whom? The manager of an enterprise is responsible to the proprietor for whom he works. Questions of the social responsibility and social security are not peculiar to business. They are by their nature peculiar to trade unions because trade unions insist on the preservation of normal civilized, technically equipped workplaces corresponding to ecological demands. And second, pay. If it is sufficient for the worker to have a family, children whom he can bring up, educate, make healthy and so on. As a whole – a healthy citizen – a healthy society, the country».

Membership.

As of 1.01.2004 KTR comprised 5 all-Russian, 4 inter-regional trade unions, and also 5 regional organizations uniting trade-union organizations some of which are included in all-Russian or inter-regional trade unions of KTR, some of which are not.

The largest branch member organizations are: the Association of Flying Staff (ALS), the Russian trade union of railway locomotive brigades (RPLBZh), the All-Russian Independent Trade Union of Service, Trade and Services Workers (ONP ROTU) "Perspektiva", the Russian Trade Union of Seamen (RPSM) and the Russian Dockers Trade Union (RPD).

Inter-regional trade unions are: Inter-regional trade union of workers of hotel, sanatorium and service enterprises ("Turprofi"), the Russian trade union of workers of sea transport (RPRMT), Inter-regional association of trade unions "Dostoinstvo», the Moscow association of working trade unions "Zashchita".

The territorial organizations are: Kaliningrad, Ryazan RO KTR, Northern RO KTR (Arkhangelsk), the Promor’e RO KTR «Confederation of Labour of Primorski Krai», Confederation of Labour of Saint Petersburg and Leningrad oblast’, Kamchatka RO KTR and also the Free Trade Union "Solidarnost’" (the Yaroslavl’ motor factory, Yaroslavl’)

The union claims to have 1.25 million members.

Distribution of membership dues. The budget.

According to a decision of the KTR Council, membership dues are established at the rate of 50 kopecks for each declared member of a trade union which is a member organization of KTR. However, taking into account the different financial position of each trade union taken separately and the different average wage levels of workers who belong to them, there is a flexible system of individual discounts determined in each concrete case by the Executive Committee of KTR with the governing body of the member organization. Apart from this, there is a system of delays and relief from payment of membership dues for extremely penurious organizations.

The 2001 budget of KTR amounted to 35403,35 roubles, on 1.01.2003 – 48485,65 roubles8. In 2002, receipts in the KTR budget from trade-union dues amounted to 449280 roubles, expenses – 436197 roubles. The largest expenditure in 2002 was the payment of dues to trade union associations – 25 % of the total expenditure. In second place came the item «Wages with deductions» - 17.8 %. Third was "Communications" – 15.3 %. Other significant items of expenditure were "Rent" and «Purchase of office equipment», 15.1 % and 13.1 % respectively. In the estimate of expenditure submitted by the KTR Executive Committee for consideration by ICFTU, expenditure was expected to exceed income by 245 thousand roubles. The biggest items of expenditure planned for 2003 were: wages (increased in comparison with 2002 by almost 60%), payments to trade-union organizations (ICFTU, RTK) and travel and subsistence expenses.

Trade-union training

KTR activists are trained through seminars and courses organized by the ILO, the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center and other organizations; they take part in round tables on all questions of social-labour relations.

Attitudes to VKT and FNPR.

KTR actively cooperates with VKT, FNPR and the other large trade-union organizations of the country. On November 29 1999. KTR and VKT, as noted above, signed a joint statement on the co-ordination of the activity of both confederations and creation of a KTR and VKT advisory body, from which were drawn their authorized representatives.

Mutual relations with international and foreign trade-union organizations

KTR has been a member of ICFTU since 2000. The trade unions of seamen, dockers, Association of Flying Staff and the inter-regional trade union of workers of hotel, sanatorium and service enterprises "Tyrprofi" are members of the International Transport Federation (ITF).

8 Data on the KTR trade-union budget, submitted for consideration by ICFTU.

The development of the former state functions of the trade unions.

Irina Kozina

Traditional functions of the Soviet trade unions. Attachment of state functions to the trade unions.Literally in the first years of Soviet power several functions which are carried out in many countries by the State, municipal and other bodies began to be transferred to the trade unions. And this line continued successively right up to perestroika at the end of the 1980s. Thus, already in December 1917 the trade unions were handed the administration of social insurance for unemployment and sickness. In the middle of 1918 147 of the 200 existing labour exchanges were headed by the trade unions. The normative attachment of state functions to the Soviet trade unions continued in Stalinist times, when in 1933 the people's commissariat of labour of the USSR (Narkomtrud) was unified with VTsSPS, and the resources of social insurance, sanatoria, rest homes and other institutions were transferred to the management of the trade unions.9 The overall management of social insurance, the functions of control and instruction, and also the development and presentation of the combined budget of social insurance was assigned to VTsSPS. The immediate administration was undertaken at first by the branch and then the territorial inter-union trade union bodies. In enterprises the assignment of benefits, monitoring of their correct distribution, the provision of tourist vouchers was undertaken by the trade union committees. In 1960 the trade unions were handed the administration of a majority of the sanatoria, rest homes and other sanatoria and resort institutions of the country, apart from those belonging to the Communist Party, the Council of ministers and several departments. At the beginning of 1987 the material base of the trade unions of the USSR was unique in its scale. Their own capital stock alone amounted to 9 billion roubles. Under the management and at the disposal of the trade unions were around 1000 health centres, more than 900 tourist establishments, 23,000 clubs and culture palaces, 19,000 libraries, around 100,000 pioneer camps, more than 25,000 sporting establishments.10

With the disbandment of Narkomtrud in 1933 state labour inspection was also transferred to the trade unions, and they began to be concerned with questions of health and safety. The trade unions, in the person of their representatives, acquired the right to inspect any enterprise, to issue orders to eliminate any violations uncovered in the area of health and safety, which had obligatory force. In 1977 legal inspection by the trade unions was added to labour inspection, giving them similar capacities to control the observance of labour legislation. At the beginning of perestroika 6500 people were involved in the trade union labour inspectorate. In workplaces, monitoring of working conditions was carried out by 4.6 million voluntary inspectors and members of the health and safety commissions of trade union committees. 36,000 trade union legal consultants enforced control of the observance of labour legislation.11

Thus, from the beginning of the 1930s many state functions were progressively transferred to the Soviet trade unions: management of the social insurance budget, control of labour protection and technical safety, the distribution of housing, economic activities of administration and so on.

The transfer of the functions of state bodies to the trade unions was conducted in the framework of the realisation of the idea of involving a wide mass of workers in the management of social

9 Постановления ЦИК, СНК и ВЦСПС от 23 июня 1933 года “Об объединении Наркомтруда Союза ССР с ВЦСПС”. 10 История профсоюзов России. М. 1999. с.299.11 История профсоюзов России. М. 1999. с.298.

affairs. Analysing the experience of putting these party decisions into life, one can say that the trade union was not the only social organisation to which functions of particular state bodies were transferred following their liquidation (for example, the transfer of the function of management of physical culture and sport to the Union of Sports Societies and their organizations entailed the liquidation of State committees in charge of these areas of social life). Some functions were jointly carried out by state bodies and social organisations (for example, in the area of the preservation of social order and so on). On the whole, one can assert that the Soviet trade unions carried out practically the whole complex of management of the social-labour sphere, although decisions were taken on the basis of joint resolutions of the government of the USSR, the Central Committees of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and VTsSPS, which were simultaneously normative acts, party and trade union directives. The trade unions in the form of VTsSPS, republican, krai and oblast’ trade union councils had the right of legislative initiative. This right was assigned to them in 1970, when the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted 'the Basic Laws of the USSR and Union Republics on Labour'.

If one takes the social role of trade unions in the traditions of the world trade union movement as a normative model, then the functional content of the activity of the Soviet trade unions does not correspond to this at all. The basic functions of the Soviet trade unions were considered to be mass-production and economic, and also social welfare work. Considerable attention was paid to educational and mass cultural work. As a result the functional scope of the trade unions in Soviet times was very varied and wide. The trade union committee in a typical industrial enterprise carried out up to 170 functions, concerning themselves with practically everything, beginning with a concern to increase the productivity of labour and ending with pioneer camps and sanatoria. Least of all, the Soviet trade unions occupied themselves with the fulfilment of their main role, protecting the labour rights and interests of the workers. The protective function of the Soviet trade unions was manifested in the tasks of health and safety carried out together with state and economic bodies and the control, even if it was entirely formal, of the observance of labour legislation by administrative-economic bodies. This work, although it occupied a certain place in the activity of the trade unions, was dissolved into the then-dominant distributive functions. This was justified by a particular theory: the 'dual role' of the Soviet trade unions was formulated: since the trade unions had the interests of the labour collective at the centre of their activity, their first priority, as the school of communism, is to create the conditions making possible the rapid growth of production.

Thus the Soviet period of trade union organisation was characterised by the fact that state functions became social (trade union), and the trade union organisations copied the practical methods of work of state structures. The transfer to the trade unions of a certain authority in the sphere of the management of labour was, in essence, a simple redistribution of responsibility between various bodies (departments) and right up to the beginning of the 1990s, when perestroika was implemented under the slogan of the modernisation of socialism, the trade unions in a full sense of this word were part of the state bureaucracy.

Changes of aims and tasks. The liquidation of the state functions of the trade unions.From the beginning of market reforms there was a gradual change in the aims and tasks of the Russian trade unions towards those corresponding to the traditional functions of trade unions. In the 1990s, the trade unions underwent a series of organisational changes: primary organisations obtained their independence, the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia was established as the successor of VTsSPS in Russia, new trade union conceptions were created, in which the protective function was put in the first place. The most important principle of the organisational construction and the activity of FNPR was declared to be the principle of its independence from state and economic bodies, political and social organisations. However the realisation of this principle in practice was not a simple matter. Once the course of market

reforms had begun, it forced the overwhelming majority of domestic industrial enterprises to the verge of bankruptcy, labour collectives and the directorate were united in the name of social salvation. In these conditions, the trade unions and part of the body of directors often spoke out together for changes and corrections of economic policy. The social economic situation of Russia became more and more difficult, a total shortage of food and industrial goods embraced the country. The liberalisation of prices of consumer goods and services significantly reduced real consumption and the standard of living of the majority of Russians. In these conditions the primary task of the trade unions was to lead the struggle to create mechanisms of social protection not only for workers, but also for various social groups which lived on fixed incomes -- pensions, benefits, stipends.

Trade union organizations gradually stopped concerning themselves with questions related to the organisation of production, educational-cultural, physical cultural work and tourism and renounced the supervision of a large number of social organisations. The mass cultural functions of the trade unions were gradually transformed into the category of paid services. Rest and tourism became the sphere of small and medium business. In this field there is a huge number of tourist agencies (including Profkurort). The clearest renunciation of the traditional functions was in the so-called new or alternative trade unions, the majority of which emerged on the wave of the strike movement which unrolled at the end of the 1980s. Apart from leading the strike movements, the alternative trade unions set about defending the rights of individual workers, against the violation of the rights of workers by employers, which was a new function for trade unions. The traditional trade unions, in the form of FNPR, constituted a pretty conservative institution with a cumbersome bifurcated branch-territorial structure, populated by old trade union personnel. Until the beginning of the 90s they kept a large part of the property inherited from Soviet times, retained technical inspection, financed from the funds of the state budget, and continued to distribute the resources of social insurance. From 1 January 1991 the off-budget social insurance fund of the Russian Federation was formed, the administration of which was handed to FNPR.12 The social insurance funds constituted the bulk of the property of FNPR and provided the trade union with a massive membership base. Because it was precisely the question of trade union property and the resources of social insurance that were the basis of those antagonisms which arose politically. On the one hand, the new alternative trade unions, which did not have these resources, demanded the rapid removal of these resources. According to a number of FNPR experts, as early as September 1991 the Russian President was handed for signature a draft decree on the nationalisation of the property of the Soviet trade unions prepared by an activist of the Confederation of Labour,13 I. Shablinskii. The draft decree provided for ‘the dissolution of the Soviet state trade unions, the nationalisation of their property and its return to the people through sale at auction'. On the other hand, the question of the influence of the state on the social insurance functions of the trade unions became one of the axes of conflict between the government and the FNPR Council. Taking into account the dissatisfaction expressed more than once by representatives of the International Monetary Fund at the excessive activity of the trade unions in Russia and of their overblown legal rights, the new Russian authorities were very tempted to adopt a radical resolution of this problem. It held off carrying it out, apparently, because of the fundamental impossibility in a short period of time of creating such an elaborate and effective state service for the social insurance of the population. Pavel Kudyukin, Deputy Miniser of Labour and Social Questions, a member of SOTSPROF and one of the leaders of the Social Democratic party of Russia, declared in May 1992, in an interview in the newspaper Solidarnost’: 'the government has still not taken a number of decisions, it is simply reviewing the question put forward by a whole range of new structures of the worker and trade union movement, of the need to nationalise the property of the old trade unions'. The conflict over the

12 Постановление Совета Министров РСФСР и ФНПР от 25.12.1990 «О совершенствовании управления и порядка финансирования расходов на социальное страхование трудящихся РСФСР». 13 A union of politicised workers’ organisations and independent trade unions of the USSR established in May-June 1990 at the First Congress of Representatives of the Workers’ Movement of the USSR.

most important and most prestigious question for FNPR deepened in September 1992, when, on the initiative of the government, a decree of the President on the transfer of the social insurance fund of FNPR to state ownership was signed. In response to this the FNPR Council engaged in a struggle with the Cabinet of ministers in the form of collective demonstrations of trade union members under the slogan: 'Turn the face of reform to working people’. As a result of negotiations between the FNPR leader I. Klochkov and the acting president of the government, Ye. Gaidar, an agreement was reached to freeze the action of this decree. The social insurance fund remained under the management of the trade unions through another year, right up to the well-known events of the autumn of 1993, when the leaders of the traditional trade unions did not support the President in his confrontation with Parliament. The government, in its turn, launched a broad offensive against FNPR. Among other repressive measures, a hasty decree of the President was adopted removing the social insurance fund from the trade union.14 The fulfilment of the function of state control of health and safety was preserved by the trade unions for another year, until the appearance of a corresponding decree, according to which inspection of the observance of the demands of labour legislation and health and safety was transferred to the state.15

Changes in the normative base. New institutions meeting former state functions of the trade unions.Under the 1993 Russian constitution the trade unions lost their right of legislative initiative although this right was given to them at the level of a number of subjects of the Federation. Nevertheless, FNPR maintained an active position in participation in the development and modernisation of laws in the sphere of social labour relations. This is permitted by article 11 of the law on trade unions which gives them the right to put forward proposals about the adoption of laws and other legislative acts by corresponding bodies of state power relating to the social-labour sphere. At the level of the regions, with rare exceptions, this right is used rarely -- there are not enough specialists.

In accordance with the changing normative base there has been a delimitation of the functions of the state and the trade unions. The state organises the system of social insurance, which was always one of the basic sources of finance of trade union activity. Labour inspection is defined as the basic function of the State Inspectorate. The right and tasks of the trade unions lie in the trivialities of social control over the distribution of the resources of the social insurance fund and the observance of the rights and guarantees of workers in the sphere of health and safety.

The Federal labour inspection (Rostrudinspektsiya). The Federal Labour Inspectorate under the Ministry of Labour of the Russian Federation was established in 1994 as the main institution for the inspection and control of the observance of the legislative demands relating to labour and health and safety. The process of establishment and consolidation of the state body is reflected in the corresponding legal and normative acts, of which about 20 have been adopted over the past 10 years. In 1989 the federal law 'on the foundations of Labour safety in the Russian Federation' defined the status of the State labour Inspectorate as 'a unified federal centralised system of state bodies which are part of the Ministry of Labour of the Russian Federation' (and not under the Ministry, as had been the case previously). The State labour inspectors, correspondingly, acquired the status of federal civil servants, and the labour Inspectorate itself became a more 'solid' organisation. The basic rights of the labour inspectors were established at the legislative level (unimpeded admittance to organisations, presentation of instructions to eliminate violations and to hold guilty parties disciplinarily responsible, investigation of accidents in production, stop the work of organisations, subdivisions and equipment, hold administratively responsible and 14 Указ Президента РФ от 28.09.93 "О Фонде социального страхования Российской Федерации".15 Указа  Президента РФ от 04.05.94г. "О государственном надзоре и контроле за соблюдением законодательства Российской Федерации о труде и охране труда".

remove from work people who have not undertaken health and safety training and so on). New and reconstructed objects cannot be put into operation without the approval of the State Inspectorate. Chapter 7 of the new Labour code of the Russian federation is entirely devoted to the State Inspectorate and control of the observance of labour legislation and other legal normative acts, containing norms of labour rights. In accordance with article 365 of the code the Federal labour Inspectorate coordinates the activity of the state inspection and control bodies and the organs of social control carried out by the trade unions (or by their associations) and the observance of the laws and other normative legal acts containing norms of labour right. Thus, the possibility of combining the efforts of all control inspection bodies for Labour safety is defined. The system consists of two levels: the Federal labour Inspectorate itself and the inspectors in the subjects of the Federation which are subordinate to it, which as a totality form a unified system of control and inspection.

According to the new health and safety legislation the trade unions maintain social control through their special bodies -- institutions empowered to deal with health and safety and representatives in joint health and safety committees (commissions) in organisations. Trade unions have the right to create their own labour Inspectorate, which derive their authority from resolutions approved by the trade unions. Structurally they reproduce the previous system: the trade union labour Inspectorate controls the observance of labour legislation, the technical Inspectorate health and safety. As opposed to the old Labour code, the federal laws on the basis of health and safety in the Russian Federation and on trade unions, in the new Labour code there are norms reducing the individual rights of trade union bodies and guarantees of members of elected trade union bodies. While the laws noted above gave the members of elected trade union bodies the right to carry out control of the observance of labour and health and safety legislation, under the new Labour code only trade union inspectors and persons authorised in health and safety have this right. In the new Labour code, trade union representatives on the health and safety commissions (committees) and those authorised in health and safety also are not given any guarantees. However, on the whole, the normative structure of trade union control remains as before, but trade union control has become, in its legal character, voluntary, having lost the elements particular to state control, that is trade union bodies do not have authority in relation to the employer and his administration.

Social insurance fund of the Russian Federation (FSS). The Fund is a financial-credit institution under the government of the Russian Federation, consisting of a specialised structure, ensuring the functioning of the whole multilevel system of state social insurance. The fund finances the payment of benefits for temporary inability to work, for pregnancy and childbirth, for the birth of a child and monthly benefits until the child reaches the age of 18 months, and also funeral benefits. Moreover, the fund finances sanatoria and spas for workers and members of their families, and the children's summer health-improving campaign. Since 2000 the FSS has had responsibility for new types of insurance -- compulsory social insurance against industrial injury and illness. It pays out insurance benefits to those victims in production (benefits for temporary incapacity or industrial injury, one-off and monthly insurance payments, additional expenditure for medical, social and professional rehabilitation).16 The tariffs for compulsory industrial accident and illness insurance are established annually by federal law. From 2005 the FSS has been made responsible for providing sanatoria and spa treatment and the provision of technical rehabilitation appliances for designated categories of citizens. The fund organises the use of the state social insurance budget approved annually by federal law and controls the use of social insurance funds. As necessary, the fund redistributes the resources of the social insurance fund between regions and branches to maintain the financial stability of the system. Moreover, the fund develops and implements state programs to modernise social insurance and the preservation of the health of employees. Payments for state social insurance are made by

16 Федеральный закон РФ от 24 июля 1998 года № 125-ФЗ «Об обязательном социальном страховании от несчастных случаев на производстве и профессиональных заболеваний».

enterprises, organisations, institutions and other economic subjects independent of the form of their ownership to a single current account of the FSS. From the moment of the introduction of the unified social tax (ESN) in 2001, control of the legitimacy of calculations, the complete and timely payment of dues to the state off-budget funds, paid in the form of the unified social tax, is carried out by the tax authorities. Departments of the fund have been established on the territories of all the subjects of the Russian Federation.

The legal basis of interaction of the trade unions with state structures is the law 'on the bases of social insurance in the Russian Federation', according to which the management of the FSS is conducted by the government with the participation of all Russian trade union associations. Control over the proper and rational expenditure of all funds in enterprises is also undertaken with the participation of trade unions. The management of state social insurance is also established in other federal laws. Under the law on trade unions, the trade unions have equal rights with other social partners to participation in the management of the state social insurance, employment, medical insurance, pension and other funds, set up on the basis of insurance contributions. The equal participation of trade unions in the management of the fund is provided through the inclusion of representatives of trade union associations in the management board of the fund and the coordinating councils of the executive bodies of the fund which is provided for in the ‘Resolution on the social insurance funds of the Russian Federation’.17

Restoration of the traditional functions of the trade unions in new conditions.The beginning of the 1990s was a short period in the history of the traditional trade unions (FNPR), when they most clearly confrontedn with the government and attempted to oppose liberal reform. Meanwhile, the leadership of FNPR drew their lessons from the events of 1993, when Parliament was bombarded by tanks and the trade union was subjected to repression. Of course, the trade unions faced a difficult choice. On the one hand, in order to preserve their status they had more actively to defend the interests of their members. On the other hand, having taken this road, they risked becoming useless to the state. For the still cumbersome territorial-branch apparatus of the trade unions to function freely, more as a large distributive resource than a real defender of the interests of workers, a sharp reorientation was extremely undesirable. On the other hand, it had to take into account the fact that the apex of the Federation was a group of holding companies which own hundreds of properties, which makes FNPR one of the largest owners in the country. The threat of nationalisation of this property or simply its privatisation through free sale was an important lever of pressure on FNPR from the government. The contradiction between the traditional role of the trade union as part of the state and local administrative apparatus and its role as defender of the rights and interests of its members was not resolved in favour of the latter. The traditional trade unions chose the course of 'constructive interaction' with the authorities, gradually constructing their familiar niche as an official swemi-governmental organisation. The trade unions established themselves as an institution of 'social partnership', the Russian variant of which in essence is some kind of agreement between the trade unions and the state apparatus. The trade unions took on themselves the responsibility of guaranteeing to preserve social stability in exchange for the right to participate in the formation and conduct of social policy, and also to consolidate this position legally. Thus, for the trade unions, social partnership was transformed into a means which gave them the ability to preserve their function as a political institution, as had been the case under state socialism. The present

17 Regional coordination councils of the fund are collegial advisory bodies, reviewing the activities of the social insurance fund. They are made up of people appointed on the basis of their posts (the manager of the regional department of the fund and his deputies), representatives on a permanent basis (one representative each from the labour and employment, social protection, tax service, finance bodies, central bank representatives in the subjects of the Russian Federation) and representatives on the basis of rotation (representatives from trade union associations, employers). The method of delegating representatives on a rotational basis is determined by the management of the fund.

practice of work of the trade unions is such that problems are resolved not so much with employers as with the state, conducting economic and social policy.

One of the methods of adaptation to new conditions was the preservation of their traditional functions. Correspondingly, among the priority tasks of SNP are declared to be, apart from the struggle for satisfactory wages, the task of collaboration in the establishment and development of a social state, and also the preservation and development of the traditional spheres of activity of the trade unions (health and safety, organisation of holidays and recuperation of workers and members of their family). In the establishment of the newly created management institutions of the social-labour sphere, trade union experience and resources were in demand, which also prepared the ground for the realisation of the mutual interests of the state and trade unions.

Health and safety.One of the important traditional activities of the trade unions is the implementation of voluntary trade union control of working conditions and health and safety. In the 1990s the system of trade union control in this sphere collapsed. The reduction of staff of trade union bodies led to the elimination of the post of voluntary inspectors. The function remained, but there was nobody to carry it out. With the reduction of their rights, the trade unions almost abandoned this problem, which in a situation of reduction of expenditure by new owners on health and safety led to the collapse of the whole system.

The situation in this sphere is considered to be critical. Structural changes in the economy over the last 15 years have led to an increase in the extraction and primary processing industries, where the share of jobs with unsatisfactory working conditions today amounts to 50 to 60% of jobs. This situation is made worse by the state of equipment and lack of modernisation of production. The drastic reduction of investment in the real sector of the economy led to a crisis situation with the deterioration of the capital stock and high level of depreciation of the equipment. In reality there is no system of regulating health and safety in small and medium private enterprises. The level of industrial injury in this part of the economy is substantially higher (by 1.5 to two times) than in similar medium and large enterprises in the same industries. The urgency of the question is determined by the significant number of people employed in this sphere.18 Although the statistics on industrial injury and illness do not show any growth in the indicators, and some indicators have been reduced, specialists note the low reliability and limited reporting of statistical information in the sphere of working conditions and health and safety. For example only about 45% of those employed in the economy are covered by the reporting of Goskomstat on Form 7-traumatism and only about 27% on Form 1-T (working conditions).

In order to re-establish the system of inspection of the observance of the demands of health and safety and labour legislation, FNPR and the regional trade union federations took a number of steps to strengthen the staff of the management bodies of the trade unions with health and safety specialists. New regulations on labour inspection and methodological documentation on this theme were drawn up and trade union reporting was re-established. In the 2000-2001 General Agreement a point was introduced on financing labour inspection of the trade unions from the resources of the social insurance fund (in fact there was already such an item in the FSS budget). In the 2001-2004 General Agreement the financing of the activity of the technical labour inspectors of the trade unions was provided for at the expense of the employers in accordance with the conclusion of collective agreements. On the basis of trade union training centres a system of permanent training in the sphere of health and safety, industrial safety and environmental protection was developed. In the Academy of Labour and Social Relations a program to provide additional qualifications (manager of health and safety) for trade union representatives was established. Work was undertaken to strengthen the role of people authorised 18 According to Goskomstat data, more than 8 million people are permanently employed in small and medium enterprises, but if one includes informal employment and self-employment this is estimated to amount to 18-10 million people.

to work on health and safety at the weakest, primary, level of control in organisations. According to FNPR data on labour inspection, in 2002 330,800 people were newly authorised to conduct this work. In particular enterprises the employer pays for this work, which is provided for by the collective agreement. Motivation is also maintained, for example, through branch trade union campaigns for the moral encouragement of health and safety representatives, competitions under the banner 'best health and safety representative of the educational institution' and similarly for environmental safety. Moreover, the trade unions are concerned with environmental protection and propagating ecological knowledge.

The basic involvement of the trade union in monitoring observance of the law on labour and health and safety is constructive interaction with the State inspection and control bodies and, in the first instance, with the Federal labour inspectorate and its territorial bodies. The basis of this is an agreement on collaboration in this sphere. This mainly involves the participation of trade union health and safety inspectors in the activity of the territorial bodies of the State labour inspectorate, joint inspections of working conditions at those enterprises in which there are primary trade union organisations, and also collaboration of the State Inspectorate in the implementation of demands presented by trade union inspectors. According to the report on technical labour inspection of FNPR for 2002, 54.3 thousand inspections were carried out, as a result of which more than 230.7 thousand violations were identified. 8.6 thousand joint inspections were undertaken with bodies of the State labour inspectorate and they revealed 43,000 violations. Apart from the State labour inspectorate, the trade unions also collaborate with other state bodies. With the State technical Inspectorate 1.92 thousand inspections were carried out which revealed 6.9 thousand violations. 4.3 thousand inspections were carried out with the sanitary-epidemiological service, which identified 10.2 thousand violations. 387 inspections were conducted with the prosecutor and 1000 violations discovered, 1.9 thousand inspections with the natural environmental bodies identified 4000 violations. On the basis of the findings of joint inspections 25.3 thousand instructions and prescriptions were issued, including 11.8 thousand presented independently. The trade union inspectors also participate in the investigation of industrial accidents and professional illness. The number of citizens injured in production who have appealed to trade union bodies over the unjustified refusal of the social insurance fund to pay benefits has increased in recent years. To defend the interests of those injured in production the labour inspectorate helps them and collaborates in drawing up the necessary documents to take the case to court and represents the complainant. The other direction of activity is participation in the development of normative documents and in the realisation of State and regional programmes on health and safety and so on.

The interaction of trade unions with bureaucrats in newly created state health and safety and social insurance bodies at the regional level is made more simple by the fact that the apparatuses of these state bodies are almost completely staffed by former trade union specialists in these spheres.

Nevertheless, the revival of the system of the trade union control of health and safety proceeds fairly slowly. Because of the absence of health and safety specialists in the Federation, member organisations are usually limited to identifying violations which arise through spot checks. A positive development only became a noticeable towards the end of the 90s. In some regions the activation of the trade unions in the sphere of health and safety was initiated by the local authorities, which proposed the creation of an effective system of control of working conditions as a priority.

Trade union activity uses the resources of the regional authorities also in the sphere of control of the observance of labour legislation. For example, in Novokuznetsk the trade unions appealed to the Governor Aman Tuleev with a proposal to create a territorial commission which today includes representatives of the prosecutor, the safety service, tax bodies and so on. And when particular entrepreneurs pay wages less than the subsistence minimum, they are called in front of this commission. And if the prosecutor and the tax inspectors have some hook on him, then they

grab him there and then. As a result, 90% pay a minimum wage no less than the level of the subsistence minimum. The most successful work is that to protect the individual rights of citizens. In the structure of FNPR today there are 768 trade union lawyers. These are basically staff of the legal services of All-Russian trade unions and territorial trade union associations, providing free legal advice to trade union members.

Participation in the administration of social insurance.Another aspect of the undoubted progress of FNPR is the fact that they have managed to demonstrate to the government the ineffectiveness of one-sided management of the social insurance fund (without trade union participation). And by the end of the 1990s, the state, despite the great temptation to take these funds under their full control, admitted trade union bodies to them. True, in recent years there has been a clearly observed tendency to weaken trade union influence on the use of social insurance funds. Thus, despite the protests of the trade unions, from 1 January 2001 four new chapters of the tax code came into force, including that on the unified social tax (ESN).19 ESN combines contributions to three state off-budget funds -- the pension, social insurance and the compulsory medical insurance funds. The Russian government, initiating these changes, justified them by the need to reduce the burden of tax on wages, to bring a significant part of hidden income out of the shadows, and to simplify the organisation of the collection of these taxes. The objection of the trade unions to the introduction of the social tax was based on the fundamental difference in character of insurance contributions and taxes, the fear of destroying the system of social insurance, and a return to the previous system of social provision.

With the introduction of the unified social tax the financing from the social insurance fund of travel vouchers to resorts, rest homes and so on was reduced from year to year and finally eliminated (except for particular categories of citizen). This was a major blow to the trade unions, which, distributing subsidised vouchers paid from the social insurance fund, strengthened their authority and among the masses. From 2005 the social insurance fund has also ceased to finance children's sports schools, the majority of which are also administered by the trade unions. The introduction of the unified tax has also led to a deficit in the budgets of the pension fund and the social insurance fund. It was decided to cover the falling income of the pension fund from the Federal budget. The social insurance fund was less lucky, its budget will be balanced by reduced payments from the fund for sick pay, which will be paid only from the third day of illness (the employer will pay for the first two days). From the first of January 2005, despite the objections of the trade unions, which presented a united front with the employers in the Russian tripartite commission, the law to reduce the maximum level of the unified social tax from 35.6% to 26% and the change in the regressive scale of this tax was implemented.20

In these conditions there is almost nothing for the trade unions to distribute. Trade union committees only have an opportunity to participate in resolving this question through the system of collective agreements with the employers and the social insurance commission, depending on the profitability of the enterprise. The method of providing unpaid holiday and recuperation vouchers for the children of single parents, those with many children and families which have lost their breadwinner remains, and subsidies of five to 10% for children of other categories of worker. These questions are partly solved by the sale of preferential permits to members of trade unions for the sanitoria belonging to the trade unions.

19 Федеральный закон РФ от 05.08.2000 "О введении в действие части второй Налогового Кодекса». 20 Федеральный закон "О внесении изменений в главу 24 части второй Налогового кодекса Российской Федерации, Федеральный закон "Об обязательном пенсионном страховании в Российской Федерации" и признании утратившими силу некоторых положений законодательных актов Российской Федерации" от27.07.2004.

The main work of FNPR in relation to the FSS consists in the development and lobbying for a conception of the reform of the system of compulsory social insurance. The main items of the conception are: return of the insurance principles of the formation of social funds; equal participation of representatives of employers, trade unions and the government in the management of insurance funds; phased involvement of workers in the formation of insurance funds; development of a system of non-state social insurance. ‘The recovery of the system of social insurance requires tripartite management, and not one-sided state management on the part of the off-budget funds. Today the off-budget social funds work on a budgetary basis; on the one side they accumulate budget funds, on the other they spend them. They do not have the task of increasing carried over residues.... With the introduction of the unified social tax and the destruction of the off-budget funds there has also been a redistribution of property! This is extortion of the money of the workers... we must take decisions which will restore the previous insurance system’. 21

Plans to create 'independent' trade union social insurance funds are characterised by the strong desire to return control of social insurance resources, if not all of them, to trade union management. For example, the Samara Federation proposed a project to create an institute of spa and sanatorium treatment for workers and members of their families -- 'the unified Russian health-improving fund', managed by the trade unions. The functions of the FSS in this scheme remain the financing of restoration and rehabilitation treatment at spas and resorts for adults and children in sanatorium-type camps. The financial scheme of the new fund proposes the use of state mechanisms of collecting taxes: increasing taxation by 0.5% on the income of individuals and increasing the size of the unified social tax by 0.5%.

Employment.During the 1990s the trade unions were actively involved and used their resources to provide employment for the population and prevent mass unemployment. The employment service at the initial stage of its establishment did not have a developed information system. FNPR took on itself the work of publishing methodological recommendations. On the initiative and with the participation of the trade unions two federal laws on employment were prepared as well as federal and regional programmes to create and preserve jobs. Staff of the employment service were trained in the system of trade union training. However, with the liquidation of the employment funds the state employment service ceased to implement active programs and was concerned only with paying benefits. However, almost immediately after the reduction of state support of the labour market, President Putin called on the trade unions to involve themselves in this work through the retraining of personnel: 'moreover, we must revive the labour markets together. And here certainly we can remember what the trade unions did in the past. Not everything in the past should be slandered and forgotten. What the trade unions did in past times, precisely retraining and reskilling personnel, acquires a completely new quality -- it becomes one of the priorities, jointly of course, with the state and employers '.22 In general the system of trade union training centres is used by the state very actively, the state also provides money for the partial financing of training personnel in trade union institutes.

The work of the trade unions on the development of the labour market and assistance to the employment of the population at the present time is fully in the course of state policy in this sphere. Its main tasks are the legalisation of the labour market and labour migration. In accordance with this in the General agreement for 2005 the trade unions proclaimed the task of developing and implementing measures to prevent the illegal hire of foreign workers and

21 From the speech of the president of FNPR, M. Shmakov, at the round table: “Концептуальные подходы к реформированию обязательного социального страхования” // Солидарность, №14, 21.04.04.22 Speech at a meeting with trade union representatives 28 April 2001.

strengthen control of the use of their labour. In determining the annual quota for employing foreign labour power the government should consult with the all-Russian trade union associations and the employers.

Through the mechanisms of social partnership FNPR participates in the revision of Federal budget drafts, and also engages itself in an ever wider circle of social problems. Among these are questions of the consumer basket, the reform of housing and communal services, pension reform, the question of the creation of occupational pension funds, the inadmissibility of increasing the circle of people with so-called 'elite' pensions, the financing of which falls on the Pension Fund and so on. Special structural subdivisions of the FNPR apparatus and territorial federations have been created to implement social work -- departments and permanent commissions on problems of social guarantees.

Thus, the main tendency of recent years has been for the traditional trade unions finally to restore to themselves their official status, they are consulted with and even financed, and for this they take responsibility for preserving social peace and not interfering with the progress of liberal reform. Having lost in the course of the reform of the state ‘transmission belt’, the post-Soviet trade unions find themselves without any direction, their activity lacked aim and sense, which was displayed in the sharp ideological crisis at the beginning of the 1990s. But, having taken note, the traditional trade unions readily re-established their dependence on the state, firmly attaching themselves to the role of system (authorised) opponents of the 'anti-popular course'. Moreover, literally with every day one sees a strengthening of state institutions (which already exceeds reasonable limits). The trade unions sequentially present their position at all levels of negotiations. The FNPR leadership no longer makes any attempt to activate their members (spontaneous strikes against the monetisation of benefits were not supported by the trade unions). The interests of trade union functionaries of the middle and higher levels are directed at finding their place in the new structures of power and, in general, at the institutionalisation of the trade union as a link in the state system, a particular kind of 'social manager'.

The tendency to the restoration of the traditional functions of the trade union is even more evident at the lower level, in enterprises and in organisations. In the enterprises power is personified by the owners and managers. The trade union has assumed the function of personnel management and social department of the enterprise. The resources of the social organisation turn out to be transformed into administrative resources and are used by managers for the effective management of the organisation. Ordinary employees and the administration belong to the same trade union, relations between them are regulated by the trade union committee. In this dialogue the emphasis is not on the interests of workers, but the interest of the corporation as a whole. In accordance with this arrangement of the role of the trade union nobody sees anything strange in the fact that the trade union considers one of its tasks not only to be control over health and safety, but also control over labour discipline. It actively participates in the struggle against drunkenness and theft and in attestation, it re-establishes the system of competition, organises holidays and sporting events, that is, in essence, it carries out the functions of the personnel department. Although in many enterprises there is virtually no 'social packet', the trade union continues to carry out the function of the social welfare department. The liquidation of this function of the trade union is also impeded by the impression of the workers that it pays for holiday vouchers and medicine. It is noteworthy that the administration and does not make any attempt to explain how the social insurance fund is formed, that is to explain to the workers that holiday vouchers do not have any relation to the trade union. As the results of sociological surveys show, the reasons for appealing to the trade union, as a rule, are limited to social welfare questions, including the provision of material assistance (around 80% of appeals) the remaining 20% of appeals are related to current problems of the calculation of wages, dismissal, and working conditions.23

23 Репрезентативный опрос работников 9 предприятий (Новосибирская, Кемеровская, Свердловская область, г. Воронеж). Объем выборки – 4539 респондентов. ИСИТО при поддержке Международного центра

Alternative trade unions.The new trade unions were competitors of FNPR, since they radically disagreed on the question of the functions of trade unions. As already noted, the main demands of the alternative trade unions were directed at the legacy of VTsSPS, of which FNPR was the inheritor, in particular of the resources of social insurance. At the beginning of the 90s a number of such trade unions formed their own social insurance funds (Independent of the FSS managed by FNPR). Agreements were concluded between them, according to which they independently managed their social insurance funds and were not subordinated to FSS. When FSS was completely transferred to the administration of the government, all the social insurance funds of the trade unions, including those which were not part of the structure of FNPR, which had their own independent funds, were liquidated. However, some of them contested in court the right to existence of the fund and continued to work. In 1997 the resolution 'On some measures to regulate payments from the social insurance fund of the Russian Federation' was adopted. In particular, it specified that insurance contributions which were transferred by organisations to the social insurance funds administered by trade unions were not considered to be contributions to the State social insurance fund, but the organisations transferring them were considered debtors for the payment of insurance contributions. Thus, many new trade unions also lost their own insurance resources. Access to the social insurance fund was a problematic point for interrelations between traditional and alternative trade unions over the whole period. When FNPR organised protests against the introduction of a unified social tax, a number of alternative trade unions asserted their support for the government, motivated by the fact that FNPR uses social insurance resources in its own interests: 'the statement of the leadership of FNPR against the introduction of the unified social tax is completely understandable -- a significant share of the presently transferred social insurance funds are spent, as in the past, to support the trade union apparatus and payment for its premises, and of course, the trade union functionaries do not want to lose these resources. Until now the management of the State social insurance resources are used as a motivation for trade union membership in FNPR organisations, despite the fact that formally the management of the social insurance fund was transferred to the Russian government. The Association of Russian trade unions SOTSPROF resolutely declares that we are against such speculation with state resources, against the continuation of the discrimination against workers and their children and the forced preservation of mass membership in trade unions, consequently, in present conditions we support the timely introduction of the social tax’.24

With the changing situation and the decline of the mass workers’ movement the alternative trade unions have become increasingly active in the same field as the traditional ones, conducting negotiations, painstakingly calculating what is really beneficial for workers, what actions of the authorities cannot be permitted and so on. The smaller new trade unions in this respect are in a difficult situation, because the more massive traditional unions monopolise the role of representative of workers at all levels of social partnership. The trade unions which are not part of FNPR were excluded from the work of the social insurance commission and other structures created on the basis of equal representation. Many alternative trade unions, understanding that it was difficult for them alone, began to enter various associations which began to coordinate their activity and realise representative functions in relation to state bodies. This characterises the tendency of adaptation of the new trade unions to the established system of redistribution of state functions. As an example one can cite the activity of VKT on health and safety, which completely copies the similar work of FNPR. In February 2000 an Interbranch Labour Inspectorate of VKT was established (MIT KTR). In April 2000 VKT signed a collaboration agreement with the Federal Labour Inspectorate of the Ministry of Labour and Social

профсоюзной солидарности, март-апрель 2000г., март-апрель 2001г.24 Из обращения Федеральный Координационного Совета Объединения профсоюзов России СОЦПРОФ к Председателю Государственной Думы  Федерального Собрания  РФ Г. Н. Селезневу. 07.12.2000. 

Development to implement inspection of working conditions and health and safety. Under this agreement a number of joint inspections were undertaken at enterprises in which members of VKT trade union organisations worked, the Labour inspectors of MIT VKT became non-established labour inspectors of the Federal Labour Inspectorate. The Federal Labour Inspectorate provided help in training health and safety representatives in enterprises. Similar practical collaboration was established with the off-budget Social Insurance Fund, the State technical Inspectorate, and the Ministry of Labour and Social Development, the International Labour Organisation, the all Russian Health and Safety Centre. The representative of VKT labour inspectors joined the Interdepartmental Commission for Health And Safety under the Russian government. Specialists of MIT VKT actively participate in the work of the working groups of the Russian Tripartite Commission for the Regulation of Social-Labour Relations in reviewing questions related to the competence of the Inter-branch Labour Inspectorate. A programme of VKT on the 'optimisation of trade union control in the sphere of the preservation of health and the safety of labour in the productive sphere' was developed which provides not only for training, but also for the analysis of the state of working conditions and the development and implementation of regional measures in the sphere of health and safety. The program extends for 1.5 years, and the Interbranch Labour Inspectorate began to implement it. The range of activity of VKT in the sphere of health and safety is very wide -- from expertise on the conditions in which the health and safety services work in enterprises to the issue of training grants and the conduct both of training and professional seminars. VKT today has serious conceptual programmes on problems of health and safety and even provides services to employers in this sphere on a commercial basis.

Thus, over time the contradiction between the new and traditional trade union associations is smoothed out. The new trade unions, with the exception of the most radically inclined, are also turning to traditional trade union functions. But for them, not having access to power, this is more difficult than for the traditional unions.

Literature.1. Ashwin, S. and S. Clarke. Russian Trade Unions and Industrial Relations in Transition // Basingstoke

and New York, Palgrave, 2002. 2. Гриценко Н. Н., Кадейкина В. А., Макухина Е. В. История профсоюзов России. М.: Академия

труда и социальных отношений, 1999. 3. Кларк С. Российские и китайские профсоюзы в постсоциалистическую эпоху // Отечественные

записки, №3, 2003.4. Профсоюзное пространство современной России / Под ред. В.Борисова, С.Кларка. М.:

ИСИТО, 2001.5. Роль социальных внебюджетных фондов в реформировании России (Страховой взнос или

единый социальный налог?) /Аналитический вестник Совета Федерации ФС РФ. - 2000. - № 11 (123)

6. Саленко В.Я.  Профсоюзы как организационная система //Социально-гуманитарные знания N 4, 2000.

7. Сенников Н.М. Правовые основы социокультурной деятельности профессиональных союзов России // Проблемы правоотношений в социально-культурной сфере: Ученые записки юридического факультета. - С.-Пб.; Изд-во СПбГУП, 2002. - Вып. 8. - с.27-32.

Lena Plotnikova: institutions of social partnership in Russia at the National, regional and local levels.The contemporary Russian system of social dialogue became a reality as a result of the broad social transformations at the end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s. Analysts relate the institutionalisation of the process of creating a tripartite mechanism in Russia to the beginning of

radical economic reform. The contemporary stage of institutionalisation of social partnership in Russia began in 1991. It was in this period that problems of social partnership applied to new conditions began to be actively developed in Russian legislation,25 the practice of social dialogue was introduced, there was a transition to a process of interaction of the three main subjects of social partnership: State, trade unions, employers.

In comparison with world experience of the establishment and functioning of the institutions of social partnership, the analogous process in Russia has a number of particularities. First, and basic, the specific feature of the process of institutionalisation of tripartism in Russia was the practice of social policy which existed in the Soviet period. In the previous, Soviet, system the state was simultaneously both the employer and the guarantor of the observance of the rights of citizens. The organs of power were the only real subjects of regulation of social-labour relations. This to a certain extent made its mark on the formation of the system of social partnership by a determined decision from above. The institutionalisation of social partnership was to a significant degree a state initiative and did not correspond to the degree of maturity of civil society.

Second, the principle of equal rights of the parties remains fictitious. State bodies position themselves as equal parties to social partnership, which in principle and by definition they cannot be. The dominant position of state and municipal bodies in the system of social partnership is defined by their power functions. The functions of coordinator and intermediary (arbitrator) of the bodies of executive power at the federal and regional levels occupies the leading role in the negotiation process. The trade unions at all levels practically always are the initiators of the signing of an agreement. The initiative to sign does not guarantee an equal position in comparison with the other two groups of participants in the agreement. The tone is provided by the state power bodies (at the federal and regional levels), then come the employers, and only at the end the trade unions. It is possible that the failure to realise the principle of equal rights is explained by the institutional weakness of the regional employers’ associations. On the other hand, the trade unions, which have their own political authority and resource base, are also not able to participate as equal participants in the dialogue. Often the trade unions do not have sufficient experience, qualifications, business culture, to engage in equal interrelations with their partners in negotiations. Moreover, the principle of equal rights is fundamental, since it determines the representativity of the parties and, consequently, the representativity of the whole social process.

Third, the formation of the institutions of representation of the interest of the parties in various regions and at the territorial level proceed very unevenly. In the course of 10 years the problem of creating influential employers associations has not been realised, the process of institutionalisation of the employers association in reality only began in 2002.26 Until then at all levels there existed, in essence, unions (associations) of industrialists and entrepreneurs.27

Fourth, social partnership in Russia is distinguished by the low quality of regulation by agreements: the content of regional and territorial agreements reflects general principles and norms embodied in higher order legislation. Concrete obligations of the parties and mechanisms to control and sanction the non-fulfilment of the obligations undertaken are rarely found in agreements.

Fifth, the coverage of agreements, both territorially and institutionally, is very uneven.

25 Указ № 212 Президента РФ «О социальном партнерстве и решении трудовых споров (конфликтов). М., 1991; Постановление Правительства РФ № 103 «О Российской Трехсторонней комиссии по регулированию социально-трудовых отношений». М., февраль, 199226 The Federal Law 156 ‘On Employers’ Associations’ was adopted on 27 November 2002.27 The exception is KSOR, created in 1994 and renamed the Coordinating Council of Employers’ Associations of Russia in 2000.

Sixth, the subjects of social dialogue (employers and trade unions) are not strong enough to transfer regulation in a regime of tariff autonomy.

The system of social partnership which has been formed over 14 years is multilevel: Federal, regional, local, at enterprise level, and functionally structured. Each level represented by institutions of social partnership has its own structure, which includes commissions for the regulation of social-labour relations, and subjects of social partnership: representatives of State bodies, employers and workers and the results of an agreement -- the Agreements.

Tripartite agreements define the general parameters of social policy at the federal level and in particular territories. Bi- (tri-) partite agreements define the mutual obligations of the parties to social dialogue in this or that industry (type of activity). A particular collective agreement is a normative document defining the obligations of the parties and, correspondingly, the result of negotiating processes at all levels (see appendices 1-4).

Federal level.To provide the regulation of social-labour relations at the national level a permanently acting body of the system of social partnership was established, the Russian Tripartite Commission (RTK), established in 1992. The legal basis for the formation and activity of the commission was determined in the law 'On the Russian tripartite commission for the regulation of social-labour relations' (adopted by the State Duma on 2 April 1999).28 The RTK is an advisory body which has the right to consult on questions of social-economic policy with federal bodies of state power, to develop and send to federal bodies proposals for the adoption of federal laws and other normative acts. Therefore all decisions of the RTK have a recommendatory character.

The work of the commission is headed by a Coordinator, who is nominated by the President of the Russian Federation.29 The coordinator is not a member, but fulfils the function of organiser: he organises the work of the commission, chairs its meetings, approves the composition of working groups and so on and plays the role of arbitrator: helps to secure agreement of the positions of the parties.

According to the federal law number 92 of 1 May 1999 'On the Russian tripartite commission for the regulation of social labour relations' (article 1), the commission consists of representatives of all-Russian associations of trade unions, all-Russian associations of employers and the government of the Russian Federation, which constitute the corresponding sides of the commission. Representation in the commission is determined by each side independently. The number of members of the commission from each side cannot exceed 30 people. The most recent composition (when the General agreement for 2005-2007 was signed) included 27 state representatives, 29 trade union representatives and 27 employer representatives; altogether 85 people. Interaction of the parties is achieved by the coordinator of the commission, the coordinators of each side, their deputies and the secretariat of the RTK. The secretariat comprises five people. The commission includes seven permanent working groups, whose tasks are to prepare proposals for the main sections of the General Agreement:

1. economic policy;

2. wages, incomes and the standard of living of the population;

3. the development of the labour market and support for employment;

4. social insurance, social protection, branches of the social sphere;

5. defence of labour rights, health and safety, industrial and ecological safety;

28 Earlier, Government Resolution 103 was adopted in 1992 and the Presidential Decree on the RTK was issued on 21.01.1997. 29 Until recently the coordinator of the RTK was Shmakov, FNPR president. Now it is the first Deputy Prime Minister, Aleksandr Zhukov.

6. socio-economic problems of the northern regions of Russia;

7. on the development of social partnership and coordination of the activity of the parties to the General Agreement.

The coordinator of the all-Russian associations of trade unions for the signing of the General Agreement for 2005-2007 was Mikhail Shmakov, president of FNPR. In 2000 the trade union associations which were not part of FNPR had six places on the commission.30 The coordinator of the employers’ side was the President of the Coordinating Council of the Employers’ Association of Russia, O.Eremeev. From the government the coordinator was the Minister of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation, M. Zurabov.

Organisation of the work of the RTK.The secretary to the commission prepares its meetings. About two weeks before a planned meeting the parties receive the agenda. Before negotiations the parties meet separately and discussed the questions which are included in the agenda, and prepare their own variants of draft decisions. As a rule the meetings are rowdy, the trade unions and the employers bring in their draft decisions.

The periodicity of the meetings depends on many factors but, above all, is determined by the political situation: the resignation of Prime Ministers, the change of government (in 1998-2000), of the Minister of Labour led to a situation in which the commission met fairly irregularly. Thus, for example, over the whole period (from April to August 1998) the government headed by Kirienko did not held one single meeting. The situation changed in 2000. Meetings of the commission became more regular and in recent times (2004, the first half of 2005) the commission has met practically every month, if necessary twice a month.

Institutionalisation of the employers’ side. Analysis of legislation.The institutionalisation of the employers side in the system of social partnership only began to develop in the 2000s. Russian legislation for quite a long time only mentioned employers associations without defining their understanding and legal status. In particular law to 490-the one of the 11th of March 1992 'on collective agreements' provided for employers associations serving as representatives of the employer in collective agreements and being participants in various types of agreement. The federal law 1 May 1999 number 92 'on the Russian tripartite commission of the regulation of social-labour relations' named all Russian associations of employers as members of the Russian tripartite commission.

In this respect any organisation of entrepreneurs (and sometimes also associations of heads of organisations) whose constitution defined one of their aims as participating in a system of social partnership, interaction with trade unions, the conclusion of agreements and so on participated in practice as employers’ associations. Such organisations operated in accordance with the federal law 7 of 12 January 1996 'On non-commercial organisations'. Thus, the first associations of employers in essence where unions of industrialists and entrepreneurs. At the end of the 1990s about 60 all-Russian associations of employers and 500 regional associations of entrepreneurs and employers were registered. The basic aim of such unions (associations and so on) were the organisation of the market space, guaranteeing the freedom of entrepreneurship, supporting business activity and so on. Associations of employers in a pure form, created exclusively for participation in the system of social partnership, did not exist.

With the reform of labour legislation, the system of representation of employers was reformed with the aim of encouraging the reorganisation of all the existing organisations on other principles, introducing clear criteria for the creation of employers’ associations. The federal law

30 Борисов В. Социальное партнерство в России: специфика или подмена понятий?/Профсоюзное пространство современной России. Под ред. В. Борисова, С. Кларка. М.: ИСИТО, 2001, С. 224.

of 27 November 2002 number 156 'On employers' associations’ recognises an association of employers as an independent form of non-commercial organisation based on the membership of employers (juridical and/or physical subjects).

This means that from the moment of this law coming into force (30 November 2002) only organisations whose designation and founding documents directly declared that they were employers’ associations could be considered as employers’ associations. Correspondingly their sole aim is the representation and defence of the interests of employers in the system of social partnership. The significance of this innovation was great. In practice it introduced a radically different system of representation of employers -- to participate in the system of social partnership they had to create new organisations corresponding to the requirements of the law. Article 18 of the law provided that employers associations created before the coming into force of the law, had to bring their founding document into conformity with the law within three years. At the same time the fact was ignored that in Russia associations which had been created only for participation in the system of social partnership and which fully corresponded to the features of an employers’ association as defined by the law, in reality did not exist. Thus, it was not a question of changing the founding documents, but of restructuring the existing organisations or creating new ones. The main task of employers associations in the sphere of labour relations was to organise the employers of branches, regions and territories for participation in the system of social partnership.

Employers at the federal level.At the present time the most influential employers’ structures in Russia is the Coordinating Council of the Association of Russian Employers (KSORR). The Coordinating Council of Employers’ Associations, created in 1994, was one of the first employers’ associations at the federal level. In 2000, with the appearance of qualitatively new tasks in the sphere of social-labour relations, the development of social partnership, and also in accordance with the demands of the law, it was transformed into KSORR. On the 1 January 2003 KSORR comprised 31 member organisations, representing more than 40,000 enterprises and organisations employing about 22.3 million people, or 46% of the whole employed population.

The Council is an association of juridical subjects created by Russian associations and organisations expressing the interests of employers at the federal, branch and regional levels. KSORR includes the largest employers in Russia and their associations, including the Russian Union Of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (employers), the Congress of Russian Business Circles, the Agro-Industrial Union of Russia, the Union of Russian Shipowners, the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and others.

The basic aims of the union are:

coordinating the activity of interested organisations in the sphere of social-labour relations;

representing their lawful interests and rights in social-labour and economic spheres, negotiation with trade unions and other representative workers’ bodies, organs of state power, in the interrelations with the International Labour Organisation and the International Organisation of Employers.

The legal status of all-Russian associations of employers is distinguished by the fact that they participate in the formation and activity of the Russian tripartite commission for the regulation of social-labour relations and the conclusion of the General agreement. Each all-Russian Association of employers has the right to nominate one of its own representatives to membership of the corresponding side of the commission. By agreement with other members of their side, all-Russian employers’ associations can increase the number of their representatives in the commission. The weight of KSORR indicates their predominance in the RTK: 20 of the 27

representatives on the employers’ side in the RTK are member organisations of KSORR, while four organisations are represented by two members, the remaining 16 by one representative.

One of the basic activities of KSLRR is dialogue with the social partners, active participation of KSORR representatives in the work of the Russian tripartite commission and its permanent working groups. Only in 2002 KSORR reviewed more than 100 draft laws and draft government resolutions introduced for consideration by the commission. On the initiative of KSORR concrete proposals were put forward concerning the most complete provision by the Russian government of the guarantee of the participation of the social partners in the development and provision of expertise of drafts of various normative acts and also increasing the responsibility of the parties to social partnership for carrying out the agreements reached by them. This proposal was supported by the Russian President at his meeting with the coordinators of the sides of the RTK in July 2003. Representatives of KSORR participate in the work of various commissions and working groups created by federal ministries and departments on important questions of social-labour relations:

the working group of coordinators and experts of the sides of the RTK to develop amendments to the new Labour code;

the group on questions related to the ratification of the European Social Charter;

permanent commission on health and safety;

working groups on particular draft laws developed by the Ministry of Health and Social Development;

working groups on pension reform, reform of medical and social insurance;

working group on the draft laws on insurance against industrial accidents;

commission on the migration policy of the government of the Russian Federation.

KSORR participates in the drawing up and implementation of such federal targeted programs as 'Russian youth', 'housing', the federal program for the development of education and the federal program of state support for small entrepreneurship. In July 2003 KSORR representatives were included in the Public Council for the Investment of Pension Savings created by a presidential decree of 23 July 2003, and the general director of KSORR was elected its president.

Activity in the regions is undertaken through membership organisations of KSORR, which has its regional structures. At the same time it is planned to create regional representatives of KSORR who would coordinate the activity of the association of employers and particular enterprises for the development of social dialogue at the regional and territorial levels. Coordinating committees of the employers’ association have been created also in the Federal districts --Urals, North-West and so on.

Apart from and the all-Russian Association of employers at the federal level there are all-Russian branch (interbranch) employers’ associations. These associations, by contrast to KSORR, are not federations, that is they do not combine associations but employers directly. They are created by employers of a branch or type of activity whose activity extends to the territories of more than half the subjects of the Russian Federation and/or which have labour relations with no less than half the employees of the branch or type of activity. In relation to this type of employers associations one must point out two pretty important practical aspects.

First, the law is oriented to the creation of one all-Russian branch employers’ association in each branch (or of each type of activity), but in practice there are up to two associations in each branch (type of activity). For example, the Union of Engineering Employers of Russia and the Russian Union of engineers; the non-commercial partnership Mining Russia and the Association of Industrialists of the Mining-Metallurgical Complex of Russia and others. However, it is

possible that one combines employers who employ half the employees in the branch, the other employers who employ the other half.

Second, the question of their participation in the creation and activity of the Russian Tripartite Commission is not clearly determined. Although the law of 1 May 1999 provides for the possibility of the inclusion in the Commission only of all-Russian associations, at the moment of adoption and introduction into force of this law the indicators of an all-Russian employers’ Association had not been defined, nor had the distinction been made between all-Russian associations of employers and all-Russian branch (interbranch) associations. Today the all-Russian branch (interbranch) associations of employers participate in the RTK. Thus representatives of seven Russian branch associations which were not members of KSORR participated in the work of the commission in 2004.

Over the course of the whole period of development of social partnership the attitudes of entrepreneurs to the existing authorities have changed significantly. At the beginning of the 1990s there was almost unanimous support for the activity of the authorities, a guardedly negative assessment of the power structures in the middle 1990s, sharp confrontational opposition at the end of the 1990s. This did not slow down the display of their authority by state bodies. Notorious 'exposures' of particular oligarchs have pacified other dissatisfied entrepreneurs. Moreover, the aspiration to centralise and control the institutionalisation of employers’ associations is clearly demonstrated in the law on employers associations of 2002.

General Agreement.The General agreement is a legal act establishing the general principles of regulation of social-labour relations and economic relations related to them at the federal level. General agreements have been concluded since 1992, with various periodicities: during 1992 to 1995 they were concluded annually. From 1996 to 2001 two-year agreements were concluded. Since 2002 the agreements have been concluded for a period of three years. There have been nine agreements over the whole period (including the most recent agreement for 2005-2007). Proposals for the content of the agreement are worked out by the parties and submitted for discussion in the RTK. The main work is undertaken in the seven permanent working commissions. Since 1998 the agreement has been worked out in a unified structure which corresponds to the number and titles of the working groups of the RTK:

economic policy;

wages, incomes and the standard of living of the population;

the development of the labour market and support for employment;

social insurance, social protection, branches of the social sphere;

defence of labour rights, health and safety, industrial and ecological safety;

socio-economic problems of the northern regions of Russia;

social partnership and coordination of the activity of the parties to the Agreement.

General agreements over the period have changed substantially. Above all, the contents of the agreement have become more concrete, the declarative character of the statements has been replaced by more clear and precisely formulated points. Second, new sections have appeared, widening and qualifying the sphere of activity of the General agreement and the methods of achieving the designated aims. For example, in the agreement the 2005-2007 measures to the reform of the tax system are indicated.

Third, recognition of the need for legal measures in the resolution of social-economic problems can be clearly traced. In the text of the agreement such phrases are frequently used as: 'to prepare normative legal acts in 2005'; 'to introduce legislative proposals', 'the Russian tripartite

commission to participate in developing draft laws on the...' and so on. Such items as 'to review in advance in the Russian tripartite commission draft tax laws affecting the interests of employees and employers in the sphere of social-labour relations, with the aim of applying expert knowledge of the possible social consequences of its adoption' and so on testifies to the increasing role both of the RTK and the General agreement.

Fourth, particular attention in the last agreement is paid to the consultation of the Russian government with the RTK on issues of the regulation of social-labour relations:

'on the basic social parameters of the forecast of socio-economic development and draft federal law on the federal budget for the following year before they are reviewed by the government of the Russian Federation';

'on the level of the minimal and maximal benefits for unemployment';

'on the question of setting tariffs for energy and transport services'.

The consolidation of the position of the trade union side is shown in the memorandum of disagreements attached to the agreement. The first memorandum of disagreement was signed in the agreement for 1998-1999, and since that time the inclusion of memoranda of disagreement has become the rule. In the General agreement for 2005-2007 a memorandum of disagreement was adopted on the issue of bringing the minimum wage up to the subsistence minimum. The proposal of the Russian government side of the commission was for a minimum wage in 2006 of not less than 1100 roubles a month. Consultation was undertaken on the issue of determining the subsequent stages for the increase of the minimum wage with the aim of bringing it up to the subsistence minimum. The trade union side proposed a staged increase of the minimum wage towards the subsistence minimum, having established a minimum wage from 1 January 2005 of 720 roubles a month to 2500 roubles from July 2007, and from 1 January 2008 to a level not less than the subsistence minimum.

Extension of the operation of agreements.In earlier agreements it was stated that 'all-Russian associations of trade unions and all-Russian associations of employers which do not have their representatives on the Russian tripartite commission for the regulation of social-labour relations, have the right to associate themselves with the present agreement in the course of the period of its application'. Although in the 1995 law on collective agreements the conditions for the extension of the agreement are defined, in the 2001 Labour Code the procedure for association is made more concrete and precise: 'the agreement extends to all employers who are members of the associations which conclude the agreement. The termination of membership in the association does not free the employer from fulfilling the agreement concluded in the period of his membership. An employer joining the employers’ association during the period in force of the agreement is required to carry out the obligations provided for by this agreement. If employers in the course of 30 calendar days from the official date of publication of the proposal to associate with the agreement do not present to the Federal executive bodies for labour a written reasonable refusal to associate with it, then the agreement is considered to extend to these employers from the day of the official publication of this proposal'. As is clear from the text of the article, the procedure for associating employers to the agreement is clearer than it was in previous years, and the norms and demands of association of this side of social partnership had been strengthened. The legally formulated procedure for association with the agreement made it unnecessary to include this point in the text of the subsequent General Agreement. Moreover, in practice not one single reasonable written refusal to associate with the General Agreement has ever been recorded from the employers’ side.

The mechanism of the responsibility of the parties for the nonfulfilment of the agreement was formally described in the law 'on collective agreements' which prescribes a fine for the non-fulfilment of obligations undertaken of up to 50 times the minimum wage, but this provision was

removed by the law of 30 December 2001. The rejection at the legislative level of norms and sanctions regarding the responsibilities of the parties and the absence in the General agreement of mechanisms for assigning responsibility for the nonfulfilment of obligations undertaken, further strengthened the positions of the state and the employers. Despite the nonfulfilment of General Agreements no violators have ever been found responsible.

Implementation procedure. The agreement begins with an elaboration of a plan of measures for each side in the three-month period following the signing of the agreement. Throughout the period of application of the agreement every six months working groups of the tripartite commission prepare information on the course of fulfilment of the agreement and make proposals about the review of the information at meetings of the commission. Thus, at the meeting of the RTK 11th February 2005, members of the commission approved as a whole a draft of the plan of priority measures of the RTK for the first half of 2005 for the implementation of the General agreement for 2005-2007. True, the government has not always presented a plan for the fulfilment of the agreement on time. Thus, the coordination of activities for the implementation of the 2000-2001 agreement became possible only after six months, when in June 2000 a meeting of the RTK was finally held.

The employer and trade union sides use both formal and informal mechanisms for the realisation of the obligations undertaken. The parties use, above all, legitimate forms of implementation of the obligations undertaken: the review of issues at meetings of the RTK,31 lobbying questions through the elaborate system of organised groups in legislative bodies,32 through the organisation of the work of analytical centres33 and so on. Legitimate mechanisms for the fulfilment of proposals include joint work in developing drafts of normative legal acts regulating social-labour relations and related economic relations, the conduct of consultation of federal executive bodies with the corresponding all-Russian trade unions and all-Russian employers’ associations, participation in the formation and implementation of federal targeted programs.

To strengthen the role of the employers and to implement the Agreement the Analytical Centre for the Development of Social Partnership was established in 2001, the founders of which were KSORR and the expert Institute of RSPP. In essence this was the brain of KSORR, it was its staff who were the experts of the working groups created by the RTK. Specialists from the centre were also members of the expert council of the committees of the State Duma on labour and social policy, women's affairs, family and young people, in the expert group of the Public Council for the Investment of Pension Savings. They participated in tripartite working groups on the questions of compulsory social insurance. That is they lobbied the interests of one party in institutional frameworks. On the other hand, apart from legitimate measures, the aspiration to integration with institutions of state power is typical of entrepreneurial structures in Russia.

31 Thus, for example, at meetings of the RTK (11 February 2005 and 25 February 2005) members of the commission reviewed the draft of the federal law 'on the introduction of changes in the federal law on the consumer basket for the Russian Federation'. After heated discussion the members of the commission decided to return to the discussion of this draft law at a future meeting of the RTK. The reason for such a decision was the negative assessment of the trade union side and the side representing the employers, of the changes in the methodology of calculating the cost of the minimal collection of non-industrial goods and services which the government side proposed. The next question included on the agenda on the initiative of the trade union side was a review of aspects of the implementation of the federal law number 122 of 22 August 2004. As might be expected, government representatives generally gave a positive assessment of the law. However, in view of the fact that in the course of its implementation a number of inadequacies had appeared, members of the commission decided to instruct the Ministry of Health and Social Development to inform the secretariat of the RTK monthly about the course of implementation of the federal law and the secretariat, correspondingly, to include this question on the agenda for the meetings of the RTK throughout 2005 and to hear the government side on its work over the errors. Members of the commission also reviewed the situation about the possible increase in 2005 of the wages of civil employees of the Russian military ministries and departments.32 Among the structures created to lobby the interests of entrepreneurs at the federal level are various kinds of expert councils attached to committees of the Soviet of the Federation, State Duma and so on.33 For example, through the analytical centre of the development of social partnership of KSORR

Analysis of the contemporary situation shows that if even quite a powerful entrepreneurial structure loses its position in its interrelations with the authorities, this also leads to a deterioration in the results of its economic activity. Cases of the fusing of entrepreneurial and control structures, the expansion of investment in bureaucrats, which provides a high percentage profit, are typical of the present situation. Often in Russian reality, a bureaucrat is indirectly the co-owner of a particular firm, has a commercial income and correspondingly provides services to that entrepreneurial structure.

The trade union side uses protest forms: it conducts all-Russian actions. As practice shows, they are not always properly organised (from the point of view of legality) and usually they are unsuccessful, for example, the October 2004 protest actions of public sector workers.

Institutionalisation of social partnership at the regional and territorial levels.Beginning from the 1990s, the process of institutionalisation of partnerly relations also began in the subjects of the Russian Federation. The development of institutions of partnership at the national level and in particular regions occurred unevenly. Thus, in Leningrad, Perm’ and Sverdlovsk oblasts joint bodies were created at the very beginning of the 1990s and the first agreements signed in 1991. In other regions this process went rather slower. For example in Samara oblast the first agreement was prepared only in 1994, and in Kuzbass in 1998.34 Initially in all regions negotiations took place only between representatives of state bodies and the trade unions, that is partnership was bipartite. Employers were included in the negotiation process and signed agreements with a delay of from one to three years.

By analogy with the Russian tripartite commission, in many subjects of the Russian Federation regional (oblast, krai, republican, okrug) tripartite commissions for the regulation of social-labour relations were established. Their legal status was defined by the laws of the Russian Federation35 and local legislative acts of the subjects of the Russian Federation. Laws on social partnership, defining the method of creation and the tasks of the regional commissions, were adopted in Sverdlovsk, Perm’, Vologoda, Omsk, Murmansk oblasts, Altai and Stavropol krai, the republics of Altai, Karelia, Mordova and the city of Moscow and other subjects of the Russian Federation.

Like the Russian tripartite commission, they were formed on a tripartite basis, operating permanently and alongside the conduct of collective negotiations to conclude (change) regional agreements and various other functions. Among them were the maintenance of control of the fulfilment of the regional agreement, collaboration in the conclusion of agreements at lower-level and collective agreements, collaboration in resolving disagreements between the social partners, consultancy in the development and implementation of social-economic policy of the region, the proposing and adopting of laws and other normative legal acts in the sphere of labour, discussion of draft laws of the corresponding subject of the Russian Federation.

Basic tasks of regional commissions:

control of the fulfilment of the agreement adopted;

identification of the reasons for conflict situations arising in the sphere of labour relations and the regulation of collective labour disputes (conflicts);

conduct of preliminary tripartite consultation and discussion of draft decrees of the head of the administration of the oblast, drafts of decisions of legislative bodies relating to economic and social-labour questions.

34 In Kuzbass tariff agreements were quite widely used, the first of which was signed at the beginning of the 1990s.35 Закон РФ «О коллективных договорах и соглашениях», ст.7; Трудовой кодекс РФ, ст.35

The basic principles of formation of the tripartite commissions, with insignificant changes, has been preserved until now. Analysis of the documents and texts of interviews shows that each party independently makes a list of its representatives for participation in the work of the commission, the draft of which is prepared by the coordinators of the side. Among the functions of the coordinators, apart from this, are the preparation of proposals for the work of the commission, control of the observance of obligations and informing the inhabitants of the oblast about the implementation of decisions taken. The personal composition of the commission is approved by a special regulation of the Governor.

In some regions the practice has developed of organising alongside the tripartite commission the 'institution of deputies', the aim of which is to provide a quorum in decision-making. In case of the absence of a member of the commission (illness, a business trip and so on) he is replaced by his deputy. For the general organisation of the work of the tripartite commission a secretariat has been created, which includes representatives of federal labour bodies in the oblast administration and secretaries from the employers and trade union sides. The secretariat prepares the plan of work of the commission, looks after the agenda, conducts the record-keeping for the commission, directs the work of experts and expert groups, undertakes consultation and organisational-methodical help for territories in the development of the system of social partnership. The activity of administration representatives in the secretariat is part of their official responsibilities, since 'the employer and trade union representatives have their own professional jobs and for them this is voluntary work' (interview).

Alongside the tripartite commissions, working groups are created, the composition of which is made up of a coordinator from each side. Working groups are assigned a particular circle of questions, for example, the collection and analysis of proposals presented by the sides, studying socially significant questions requiring the agreement of the commission and so on. One of the working groups is responsible for the preparation and agreement of the draft agreement and other documents which are worked out by the commission. The work of this commission is headed, as a rule, by the head of the Labour Department of the oblast administration. In the oblast administration, the appropriate departments receive a draft and 'prepare their variant of the questions which concern them' and return it again to the working group. Until recently the parties to social dialogue at the regional level (this particularly concerns the employers) showed an interest in the work of the tripartite commission which was very different from social partnership. This was a natural result of the essence of the regional employers’ associations (unions of industrialists). It is possible that the tripartite commission was initially seen by them as a replacement for the former meetings of party economic activists.36 The commission is headed, as a rule, by a deputy governor, and the authority of the commission in the region, and indeed the state of social partnership as a whole, depends on his authority.

The activity of the regional tripartite commissions is augmented by the functioning of territorial tripartite commissions for the regulation of social-labour relations. The possibility of creating such commissions is provided for in article 35 of the Labour Code. It should be noted that such commissions have been created in far from all the subjects of the Russian Federation. They act either on a permanent basis (Volgogradskaya oblast’), or fpr a particular period defined by the agreement of the parties (Krasnoyarskii krai). Territorial tripartite commissions are usually created on a district (city) level of representatives of the local administration, territorial trade union associations, as a rule of coordinating councils and employer representatives. The territorial commission is recognised as a body of social partnership which undertakes multifaceted activity. For example, one can take the law of the Republic of Karelia of 13 February 2001 on social partnership, which gives the commission the authority to conduct collective negotiations, preparation and conclusion of a territorial agreement; reconciliation of the social-economic interests of the local administration, territorial trade union associations and corresponding associations of employers in developing common principles of regulation of 36 См.: Борисов В., Саймон Кларк, Указ. Соч., С.231

social-labour relations at the local level; collaboration in the agreed regulation of social-labour relations at the level of the district.

The laws of some subjects of the Russian Federation already define the membership of territorial commissions. Thus the law of Kemerovo oblast of 21 February 2003 on the tripartite commission provides that the territorial tripartite commission is made up of representatives of the territorial Association of Trade Unions, Territorial Association of Employers in municipalities of Kemerovo oblast’ and local authorities on the initiative of either side.

The right of the employers’ associations as members of the territorial commission is determined by regulations about the commission. It should be noted that serious attention is not usually paid to this issue. The example, the regulation on the district tripartite commissions for the regulation of social-labour relations approved by decision of the district meeting of Sheksinskii municipal district of Vologodskii oblast’ of 25 December 2002 establishes the following rights of members of the district commission:

participation in meetings of the commission and working groups in accordance with the rules of the commission and preparation of draft decisions of the commission;

introduction of proposals on the questions relating to the competence of the commission, for review at meetings of the commission.

Which demonstrates the formal approach to the organisation of the process of regulation of social-labour relations in the district.

The features of the infrastructure of social dialogue at local level consists in the creation of coordinating councils of trade unions in cities and districts. The emergence in Russia of inter-branch trade union associations at the level of cities and districts, councils of trade union committee presidents, territorial trade union councils and so on was a feature of the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s. Common to all territories is the fact that they were created primarily from above, by decision of the governing body of the oblast trade union federation. New associations were formed on a voluntary basis and initially included only a few enterprises. As they developed, other enterprises were incorporated so now some of councils represent up to 90% of organisations on their territory. It seems that the inclusion of territorial trade union bodies in negotiations with the authorities and employers, and the signing by them of bi- and tripartite agreements is significant for the regional federations from the point of view of the demonstration of their activism in the development of the system of social partnership. The importance of this is dictated by the fact that, on the one hand, the inclusion of new participants in the system of tripartism -- trade union bodies -- increases the significance of the oblast federations in the eyes of the latter as participants in the negotiation process at the regional level and means that it can strengthen the position of the oblast federation in the trade union organisation at the lower level. On the other hand, activity to create and develop inter-branch trade union associations can be seen partly as a reaction to the position of the authorities, since the trade unions have often been admonished by the administration for their inadequate initiative in the conduct of social dialogue at the local level.37

The basis of branch social dialogue in local authorities is the public sector or the agrarian sector, that is, where there is a local trade union structure and the trade unions directly interact with the local authority. Correspondingly the coverage of employees by the corresponding agreement differs, depending on the region (the example in Krasnoyarskii krai 42.3% of workers are covered by branch and territorial agreements (12 city, 13 regional branch and 52 territorial branch agreements).

At present in the majority of regions tripartite regional agreements are signed, moreover about 1500 branch regional and more than 500 tripartite territorial agreements are concluded. To assess 37 Германов И.А. Межотраслевые профсоюзные объединения на субрегиональном уровне/Профсоюзное пространство современной России, С.175-188

the condition of the contemporary level of development of the regional and territorial systems of social partnership in the areas of administrations and trade union federations there are a number of formal indicators:

the existence of bi and tripartite commissions for the regulation of social labour relations;

the establishment of institutions of the government side at the territorial level;

the development of a regional normative-legal base for social dialogue (regional laws);

the distribution of the practice of concluding regional (territorial) tripartite agreements and branch agreements;

the distribution of the practice of concluding collective agreements at enterprises and in organisations.

Certainly formal indicators do not reflect the real state of social-labour relations (the level of social stability or tension). At the same time, they give an impression of the condition of the institutional basis of social dialogue. As is shown in practice, the subjects of the regional level of social partnership are not able to measure the effectiveness of social partnership, which requires the collection and analysis of deep indicators.38

Employers’ associations at the regional level.In the 1990s, through the constant restructuring of the executive authorities (the reorganisation of ministries), the subjects which could be held responsible for the non-fulfilment of branch tariff agreements practically disappeared. The demand for employers’ associations was met by the trade unions: they were the initiators of the creation of employers’ associations at the Federal and regional levels. Thus, the founding congress of the Association of industrialists of the mining-metallurgical complex of Russia (AMROS) was called on the initiative of the mining-metallurgical trade union of Russia. The absence of employers’ institutions at the regional level was the basis for trade union initiatives. The creation of employers’ associations on the initiative of territorial and regional trade union committees in the subjects of the Russian Federation became the norm:

'the territorial committee of workers of the metallurgical industry concluded bipartite agreements with the Council of directors, which they themselves promoted, from 1994. The oblast committee of the engineering trade union tried to create a partner with which it could work. In December 2000 the oblast committee appealed to the union of industrialists, entrepreneurs and employers of St Petersburg with a proposal to create in their structure an engineering and metalworking section so that they could conclude a regional branch tariff agreement with them. At the same time the oblast committee strengthened the union of industrialists, entrepreneurs and employers of St Petersburg, proposing that the directors of enterprises in which there was a trade union organisation should join the union ' (report of the St Petersburg regional branch of ISITO 2000).

‘From 1994 in the oblast’ bipartite agreements were concluded between the trade unions and the administration, however, because of the absence of employer representatives, their effectiveness was not very great. The trade unions raised the question of the need for an employers’ association, but it required the authority of the oblast’ administration to provide the organisational impulse this process. In 1996 representatives of more than 100 enterprises of the oblast’ were invited to a meeting about the development of the system of social partnership, where they were invited to participate actively in this process, and more concretely, to create an employers’ association as the third party of social dialogue' (from the report of the Samara regional division of ISITO 2001).

38 Программа социологического мониторинга состояния системы социального партнерства на региональном уровне. Пермь. 2002, 28 с.

'The branch regional committee considered the possibility of concluding a tariff agreement with the employers’ association of the mining-metallurgical complex as a long-term task. In the view of the leader of the branch regional committee, this will make it possible to exert more influence on the heads of mining-metallurgical enterprises immediately in the oblast. On the initiative of the president of the regional committee a council of mining-metallurgical enterprises of the oblast’ was created and it then worked out a regulation for this organisation. The particularity of this association is that the president of the Perm’ oblast committee of the mining-metallurgical trade union is officially a member of the council with equal rights ' (from report of the Perm’ regional division of ISITO).

Regional employers’ associations began to be created only in the last two years, after the adoption of the law on employers’ associations. Until then, as at the national level, regional associations were represented by unions of industrialists and entrepreneurs. Now organisational work is being carried on in the regions to create employers’ associations or regional unions (associations and so on) of entrepreneurs, which until recently represented the interests of their members both in the conclusion of the corresponding agreements and in the activity of permanent tripartite commissions for the regulation of social-labour relations. One cannot say that the process of creation of regional employers’ associations in the subjects of the Federation is going forward particularly actively. The institutionalisation of the employers’ side is proceeding very unevenly. The situation in various subjects of the Federation is significantly different. For example, in Samara and Perm’ oblast’i, the process of reorganisation of the regional associations has been completed, tripartite regional agreements signed by the already established employers’ associations. While in Kemerovo oblast’ the tripartite agreement for 2004-2006 on the part of the employers was signed by the directors of large industrial enterprises and the heads of branch and regional unions of industrialists and entrepreneurs. Apart from the regional associations, the process of institutionalisation has extended to autonomous okrugs. Okrug associations of employers had been created in the Yamalo-Nenetsk and Khanti-Mansii autonomous okrugs. The creation of regional branch employers’ associations in the subjects of the Russian Federation is a more complicated process. There are not many such associations, they have been created primarily in the timber and agro-industrial sectors of the economy.

The decision to reorganise employers’ associations does not come from their own initiative, it does not derive from their demand to represent the interests of employers in social partnership. First, new associations were the result of normative-legal acts at the federal level. Thus in the presentational materials of several regional employers’ associations, among the reasons for their reorganisation, above all, are identified:

the coming into force of the 2002 Labour code;

the coming into force of the federal law on employers’ associations of 2002;

existing legislation about the state regulation of tariffs for electricity and heating according to the government decree of 2 April 2002;

the inability to introduce changes into tripartite agreements.

Second, the creation of organisations (associations) of employers has been determined to a considerable extent by the existence of trade unions and the need to oppose the latter, to have bodies which can take on themselves the work of undertaking consultation, negotiations and so on.

The criteria for the creation of employers’ associations are chosen according to the existing traditions and taking account of the construction of the system of trade unions, the social partner of the employers. Among the particular features of the formation of employers’ associations is the fact that the criteria of their formation are not chosen by the participants of these organisations themselves, but are handed down from above, by legislative decision. In

accordance with the 2002 law, employers’ associations can be created on territorial (regional, interregional), branch, interbranch, or territorial-branch bases.

Under the federal law on employers’ associations, the laws ofsubjects of the federation either have to be repealed, as has already been done in the Udmurt Republic, or brought into conformity with the Federal legislation. An example is the Sverdlovsk oblast’ law of 29 July 1996 on employers’ associations, which among the aims of employers’ associations prescribes the development of proposals for the optimisation of the tax obligations of economic subjects and the creation of the most favourable regime to their economic activity, support for business activity, the social and legal status and the prestige of the heads of organisations in all branches of the economy and so on, not related to social partnership. The forms of employers’ associations are also prescribed without taking account of the federal law. Obviously the corresponding items of the law will have to be amended.

Agreements at regional and territorial levels.The basic principles of functioning of the system of tripartite agreement in Russia are regulated by the federal law on collective agreements and the Labour Code. In the normative acts there are fairly wide possibilities for the inclusion in agreements of items directly related to the sphere of social-labour relations. Thus, agreements can include items on wages, working conditions and health and safety, work and holiday regime; on the mechanisms regulating pay; on additional compensatory payments; on ecological safety and the protection of the health of workers in production; on special measures for the social protection of workers and members of their family and so on. Legislative acts of subjects of the Federation under which regional agreements fall provide for the inclusion in the agreements of general principles of regulation of social-labour relations and the realisation of state social guarantees, social norms and programmes, minimum wages, guarantees and benefits. Most regional agreements are declarative, general formulations predominate in their contents, often reproducing legislative acts of the Russian Federation and the superior General Agreement. In the majority of cases there are no effective mechanisms prescribed for their implementation. The question of the social protection of the population occupies the main place in them. Some regional agreements are very concrete, prescribing a clear differentiation of the authority and responsibility of the parties. A significant place in such agreements is given to the question of the tariff regulation of pay at the regional level. Appendices to the agreement regulate the interbranch relationship of the salary of grade 1 workers in main production, recommend the relationship of tariff scales of particular occupations, coefficients increasing salary to take account of the difficulty and conditions of work, making recommendations for the determination of salary scales and the methods of their indexation. An example of such an approach can be found in the Sverlovsk oblast’ agreement. The regional agreement of 2005-2007 proposes the method of regulating pay in organisations in the private sector in Sverdlovsk oblast on the basis of the application of the unified interbranch tariff grid (EMTS).

The main problem of tripartite territorial agreements at the moment is the absence (or the inadequate reflection) in them of the question of the economic development of the territory. Instead, territorial agreements include complex resolutions of social and economic problems, combined with branch and territorial approaches. In them there are considerable possibilities to reconcile the interests of branches represented in small towns or districts with the interests of the social development of the territory. At present the absence of a mechanism to reconcile branch tariff agreements with regional and territorial agreements is one of the serious reasons for the slow development of social dialogue at the territorial level.

Alternative trade unions in Russia in 2002-4Petr Bizyukov

IntroductionIn this report the activity of so-called alternative trade unions in Russia in recent years will be described. More precisely this will cover the period from 2002, from the adoption of the new Labour Code. The activity of the alternative trade unions before 2002 has been described in a while series of publications.39 The source of information for writing these reports was interviews with leaders and members to alternative and traditional trade unions in various regions of the country over the period from 2002 to 2005. In addition, documents and materials of the trade union organisations and press reports have been reviewed.

The term ‘alternative trade unions’ was born in the course of research into the new trade unions which arose after 1991 and did not join the traditional trade union organisation, FNPR. As a rule, these a trade unions which arose in the upsurge of the democratic and workers’ movement in the second half of the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s. These trade unions were in general created as an alternative to the traditional soviet trade unions and their creation led to a split in the trade union movement which has still not been overcome. The alternative character of the new trade unions lay not only in the fact that they existed outside the framework of FNPR. The main aspect of their alternativeness was that they found and developed new methods of regulating labour relations.

The 1990s was a period of active changes in social-labour relations in Russia. New forms of interaction of employees and employers, new laws and new directions appeared and they had to be mastered. For example, the replacement of stated control of the level and payment of wages led to massive delays in the payment of wages in the middle of the 1990s. The existing legal mechanisms could not handle this problem for a whole series of reasons. The main reason was that in practice they were subordinate to and dependent on the administration of the enterprises. Therefore they endlessly agreed with the employers schedules to pay off the debt, which they did not fulfil and nobody could oblige them to do anything. The new trade unions, little dependent on the administration, first began the struggle for workers’ rights and, as a result, discovered a mechanism not only to restrict the employers’ delay of wages, but also to secure corresponding indexation and even moral compensation. It was precisely this ability to find a new means of resolving the problem that was a new alternative and allowed them to appropriate the name ‘alternative trade unions’. 40

The alternative trade unions are those trade unions which are not part of the FNPR system, although justice demands that we mention that there were also active organisations within the framework of FNPR which found new methods of defending the interests of their members. But such organisations were the minority and they could not change the conservative position of the

39 Бизюков П. Альтернативные профсоюзы на пути освоения социального пространства. Социологические исследования № 5 2001 г., Бизюков П., Петрова Л., Профсоюзы для войны ЭКО № 8, 2001-10-01, Бизюков П. В. «Российские профсоюзы в 1990-е годы: траектория развития» в кн. Профсоюзное пространство современной России / под ред. В. Борисова, С. Кларка, М.: ИСИТО. 2001 г., Бизюков П. «Альтернативные профсоюзы: три эпохи» в кн. Профсоюзное пространство современной России / под ред. В. Борисова, С. Кларка, М.: ИСИТО. 2001 г.

40 Further on the terms see Бизюков П. «Альтернативные профсоюзы: три эпохи» в кн. Профсоюзное пространство современной России / под ред. В. Борисова, С. Кларка, М.: ИСИТО. 2001 г.

post-soviet trade unions from the FNPR system which, correspondingly, it is proposed to call ‘traditional trade unions. Examples of alternative trade unions are the Independent Miners’ Union, the trade unions of air traffic controllers, dockers, pilots, locomotive brigade workers and so on. Of the alternative trade unions which do not have a clear branch identity one can name the Sotsprof association of trade unions and a whole series of regional trade union associations. The alternative trade unions are united in two federal organisations, the Confederation of Labour of Russia (KTR) and the All-Russian Confederation of Labour (KTR). In addition there are organisations which do not belong directly to either of these trade union associations.41

At the moment there is no reliable data on the membership of the alternative trade unions. There are several reasons for this. The most important is that today the alternative trade unions are subject to undisguised pressure from the employers. They openly demand that workers who are members of the alternative trade unions should leave these unions and transfer to the traditional organisations. Thus the alternative unions try, as far as possible, to conceal their members and allow dual membership (so that workers can simultaneously belong to two trade union organisations) and so on.42 The official assessment of their membership given by VKT and KTR fluctuates around a total of 1-5 to 2 million.

Situation of the alternative trade unions after the adoption of the Labour CodeThe adoption of a new Labour Code in 2002 inflicted an enormous blow on the alternative trade unions. Until 2002 the number of alternative trade union organisations was increasing. They began to appear not only in those branches in which the workers had a monopoly position (pilots, air traffic controllers and so on), but also in budget branches, in the sphere of housing and communal services and in trade. This was a process of various groups of workers opening up the space of social-labour relations which had developed up to that time. Of course the experience of the alternative trade unions was not always successful. The maximalism of the leaders of such trade unions, their aspiration to resolve all issues through strikes and conflicts often led to a loss of support in the collective. A low education level led them to put forward proposals which were not acceptable to the employer and the collective. But the majority of alternative trade unions gained both open and covert support from their collectives. Even in those cases in which trade union leaders began openly to abuse the trust of their members, and their behaviour became amoral, the workers did not completely abandon their support, preferring to keep such a trade unions at any price – for the possible conflict.

Not only was the anti-trade union orientation of the new Labour Code apparent in the course of its discussion, but it also clearly revealed a line of pressure on the alternative trade unions. Vice-Prime Minister V. Matvienko, who was the government Minister responsible for drawing up the Labour Code, spoke frankly of ‘forcing small trade unions out of the process of decision-making’ on the grounds that one cannot admit to the decision those who do not represent the majority of the collective. This government line was readily supported by FNPR, clearly counting on the fact that with the help of the Labour Code they would be able to get rid of their competitors.

As a result, the Labour Code includes several norms which are directed against the alternative trade unions.

The biggest blow to the alternative trade unions was inflicted by article 37, which defines the principle of proportional representation of the representative body for negotiation with the employer in relation to the number of members of the trade union organisations. In accordance

41 This aspect will be discussed in more detail below, in the section on the «Organisational structure of the alternative trade unions: problems of membership»42 This theme will be discussed in more detail below, in the section on the «Organisational structure of the alternative trade unions: problems of membership»

with the principle, the small, but solidary and active alternative trade unions find themselves in the minority in comparison with the large organisations of the traditional trade unions which have, in most cases, a formal membership. Moreover, after the adoption of the new Labour Code, on the ground employers activated the process of forcing out members of alternative trade unions. For example, in Berdsk in Novosibirsk oblast’, according to the president of the teachers’ trade union, the school directors ‘began to summon our members and openly declare to them: either you transfer to our trade union [the traditional education trade union – PB], or you will work for basic pay, without any additional payments’. They began to persecute those who tried to resist. For example, in one school where there had been a fight between pupils of two classes, the class teacher who was a member of the alternative teachers’ union was punished, but her colleague, whose pupils also took part in the fight, was not subjected to any punishment. The punishment was to be removed from the position of class teacher (so losing the corresponding pay supplement), deprived of payments from off-budge funds and given a reprimand.

Something similar is found at coal-mining enterprises, in housing and communal services, in medical, cultural and other organisations. Thus, the administration either completely destroyed the alternative organisations or reduced their membership to such a level that they could have no influence on the negotiating process.

The second norm of the Labour Code directed at the alternative trade unions was the norm preventing the signing of more than one collective agreement in one enterprise or organisation. For the alternative trade unions this meant that they lost their ability to accentuate their position. This is very clearly shown in the example of the interaction of the two trade unions in the Abashevskaya coal mine in Novokuznetsk (Kemerovo oblast’). Since 1991 there had been two trade union organisations at the mine: one the traditional Rosugleprof, the other the alternative NPG. Both organisations had several hundred members and a high authority. From the middle of the 1990s each trade union concluded its own collective agreement. But from 1999, having tired of fighting with one another and on the demand of the administration, a single collective agreement was created which combined the best and most realistic features of both collective agreements. In fact the trade unions had overcome their division and twice, in 1999 and 2001, worked together on the collective agreement. Such a situation continued until 2003. After the adoption of the new Labour Code Rosugleprof, as the largest trade union, refused to agree a new draft with NPG. As a result the collective agreement was drawn up by the administration, with a significant worsening, and the traditional trade union obediently rubber-stamped it. There was a similar story in 2004 in the port of Nakhodka (Primorskii krai) where the dominant traditional trade union forced the independent dockers’ union out of the adoption of the collective agreement which turned out to be worse than that which was adopted at the neighbouring port of Vostochnyi, where such a forcing out did not happen.

The third feature directed against the alternative trade unions was related to the much more difficult procedure for collective labour disputes. It was so complicated even before the adoption of the new Labour Code that far from everybody followed it, preferring to initiate spontaneous strikes. But in the new Labour Code the demands which are the basis of a collective labour dispute must be approved by a meeting or conference of the whole of the labour collective (article 399). In the past there was no such strict demand. As a result, alternative trade unions at enterprises and organisations are excluded from the process of organising collective labour disputes. Their competitors in the traditional trade unions can either ignore such a meeting (or conference) or, using their numerical preponderance, reject the collective submission of demands.

In such a situation the alternative trade unions have lost their most effective instrument, the strike. Despite the radicalism of the leaders of the alternative trade unions at the beginning of the 2000s the majority of them expressed the sober idea that they must use strikes accurately. But nobody, neither the unions nor the employers, were going to forget about them. The complication of the procedure for organisation a collective labour dispute and the forcing out of

the alternative trade unions from this possibility led to an increase in spontaneous strikes and hunger strikes. For example, a hunger strike of miners in Khakasia (November 2004), a series of strikes and hunger strikes in small towns in Sverdlovsk oblast’ (Verkhnyaya, Pyshma, Krasnotur’insk and others) at the end of 2004 and the beginning of 2005.

The limitation of participation in bargaining, a single collective agreement, the impossibility of one trade union beginning a collective dispute, all these norms were directed at limiting the influence of the alternative trade unions. But despite this the new Labour Code introduced norms which have a universal anti-trade union significance. Above all are the limitation of the influence of the trade union in case of the dismissal of employees by the administration, the possibility of partially signing a collective agreement, leaving aside the points of disagreement for what is in practice an indefinite period and so on. As a result the introduction of the Labour Code has weakened the position of all trade unions, but the alternative trade unions have particularly suffered.

As a result a large number of small organisations simply ceased to exist or continued an informal existence. For example, in Voronezh in the municipal organisation Voronezhteploset’ in 2003 the primary organisation of the trade union of heating and municipal organisations Shchit, which had existed for about five years, was smashed. The leaders were sacked, the remaining members of the trade union, under the pressure of the administration, either left this trade union of were transferred to the traditional trade union. A few months later, the leaders of the trade union proved the illegality of their dismissal and were restored to their jobs. But by the time they were reinstated, the organisation had effectively ceased to exist. But the activity of the trade union leaders to defend the rights of the employees of Voronezhteploset’ did not cease. Then all those who needed their interests to be defended turned to the regional organisation of alternative trade unions, the Confederation of Free Labour and there, as ordinary citizens, obtained the necessary legal support and economic consultation.

Only a few strong organisations among the alternative trade unions have been able to resist – the air traffic controllers, dockers, pilots, seafarers, railway workers and a few others, which had come to dominate their organisations during the 1990s or had acquired sufficient membership to compare with the traditional trade unions. They, certainly, experienced a deterioration of the situation, but were not pushed to the verge of disappearance.

Incidentally, at the level of the enterprise, following the adoption of the Labour Code, the conflict between traditional and alternative trade unions became more acute. In the majority of cases there was no question of any kind of solidarity or support. The traditional trade unions only rarely stood aside from the struggle of the administration with the alternative trade unions. Usually they acted together, using the pressure of the administration as a means of increasing their own ranks. In practice the destruction of one trade union was achieved with the help of the others. And this significantly deepened the divisions in the trade unions. Moreover, the reacquisition of the dominant position of the traditional trade unions did not improve the situation. In the majority of cases the leaders of the traditional trade unions recognised that the agreements of recent years, 2003-4, were a significant element in the deterioration of the social-labour situation. According to one expert who participated in negotiations to conclude a branch agreement for the metalworkers (GMPR), the employers from the first minutes of the negotiations resolutely put forward proposals which were worse than in the previous draft of the agreement. The alternative to this agreement was a complete refusal to collaborate with the trade unions at all levels. All attempts to find a compromise failed. The trade union had to agree to the employers’ position.

Thus, the Labour Code adopted in 2002 was a significant factor in the weakening of the alternative trade unions. Thanks to it, the alternative trade unions lost the effective instruments of their influence. But they did not manager to destroy the alternative trade unions completely.

Some of them, the most numerous and powerful, retained their influence and some found new forms to preserve their influence and defend the interests of employees.

Basic directions of activity of the alternative trade unionsOne can distinguish a number of directions of activity of the alternative trade unions. These are

Development and control of the observance of collective agreements;

Organisation of current interaction with the administration;

Organisation of labour disputes;

Court actions to assert the interests of organisations and employees.

Development and control of the observance of collective agreementsFrom the very beginning of their existence the alternative trade unions emphasised the protective character of their activity. They considered collective agreements to be the main instrument of protection and actively participated in collective agreement campaigns. The removal of the alternative trade unions from the process of conclusion of collective agreements constituted a significant blow to their prestige. ‘In the past we had our own collective agreement, but now we have nothing to demonstrate the reasons for our existence’ said one president of a primary organisation of NPG in Kuzbass, which had virtually ceased to exist.

But even those trade unions which managed to survive also faced serious difficulties with collective agreements. First, they had to struggle with the traditional trade unions, which imposed their conciliatory position in the development of the draft agreement. Second, the employers began to take a tougher line with the trade unions. The basis of this toughness was the clause of the Labour Code referred to above which makes it possible to sign only the agreed items of the collective agreement, deferring the signing of other items indefinitely. In such conditions, the trade unions, facing a tough position of the employers, can achieve an agreement in which the secondary points are signed but the main ones are not. This is equivalent to the absence of an agreement and then none of the trade unions are in a position to produce any agreement for their members.

The way out of this situation was the careful preparation and investigation of all the aspects of the legal and economic situation. Thus the Primor’ye Confederation of Labour (KTR Vladivostok) engaged an economist who showed that as a result of the reduction of the Unified Social Tax (ESN) from 35% to 26%, every enterprise could increase wages by 7.7% without increasing its costs. These calculations became the basis of a very constructive dialogue between the trade unions which were members of KTR and their employers, some of whom took a very hard position on this question. This example shows that, despite serious problems, active trade unions can find opportunities to struggle. These opportunities are mainly related to the growth of their own professionalism and the involvement of experts – all this makes it possible to conduct a competent dialogue with the employers.

Organisation of current interaction with the administration.The essence of this form of work is that trade union representatives conduct current dialogue with the management of the enterprise (Organisation). Collective agreements cannot be exhausted documents, regulating every aspect of the inn to a reaction of employers with the employees.therefore personal contact of the president of the trade union committee with the management of the enterprise (Organisation) is the instrument which makes possible the operational regulation such relations. Framed many specialists and employees the existence of contact of the director with the trade union committee is an indicator of the authority of the trade union committee. If the president of the trade union committee is invited to planning meetings,

you may be received by the director, then all are remaining managers were listened to him. Trade union members know that such a president can quickly take any problem to the top director.

The president of the trade union committee of the Abashevskaya mine (Kemerovo oblast’): ‘I regularly go to planning meetings, and then I can raise any case you with the director, and all the managers know that if something is not right, I will not keep quiet. Therefore they prefer to reach an agreement with me before it goes to the director’.

True, this mechanism still works, at the moment the trade union has potential and authority. In so far as the trade union is weakened, (as a result of the mistakes of the trade union committee or pressure of the administration) then it loses the possibility of operational contact and this is a signal. The trade union is transformed into a decorative organisation, which cannot even insist that somebody listens to its position.

Organisation of labour disputes.One of the most powerful aspects of the activity of the alternative trade unions was their readiness to defend the interests of workers right up to open conflict with the employer. The readiness to defend the interests of the workers right up to a strike always had a substantial influence on the employers. The strengthening of the law in relation to strikes has significantly weakened the position of the alternative trade unions. But, as practice shows, the alternative trade unions still use strikes. True, now it has become more difficult to organise a strike, but the effect of their conduct has become more appreciable.

One can distinguish two types of situation in which the alternative trade unions managed to organise an effective strike. The first is related to a hopeless situation for the employees. For example, the strike of lift operators in one of the districts of the city of Tyumen. In 2003 the lift operators, mainly women, faced the refusal of the administration of the municipal enterprise to increase their pay, in which there were delays, which had already not been increased for several years and amounted on average to 1200 roubles. They lift operators were particularly indignant that in other enterprises servicing the municipal sector there had been increases in tariffs. Initially the lift operators, organised in a small trade union organisation, asked for an increase of 20%. At a meeting they were refused in a very sharp form. Moreover, pressure began to be put on the trade union and its members. Indeed, in this case, the women did not allow themselves to despair in the face of the pressure and began a strike. The strike was spontaneous, and the basic demands were to pay the wage debts and increase tariffs. The action continued for about two weeks. At first no attention was paid to it, but then a squall of complaints forced the city administration to pay attention to the strike. The administration of the municipal organisation had to enter into negotiations, and as a result the tariff scale was increased by 40%. True, according to the head of the trade union, pressure on the trade union members began, and within a year the organisation had been practically smashed.

The second situation in which a strike can have an effect is related to the dominance of the trade union in the enterprise. In this case, relying on a large membership and the solidarity of its members, the trade union is able to organise not simply effective but spectacular actions. As an example one can cite the ‘Italian strike’ conducted by dockers in the port of Vostochnyi (Primorskii krai). Here also the issue was the need to increase the tariff scales, and again the employer refused to do this. According to the trade union president, the organisation of a traditional strike would have taken a long time, which would hardly lead to any result. Moreover, the employer would either drag out this process, or disrupt it. Moreover, there is also a traditional trade union organisation in the port, which always stands on the side of the employer, and in the process of negotiations this could create additional difficulties, since it is necessary to conduct the negotiations in the name of a single body.

Therefore it was decided to undertake the so-called ‘Italian strike’ or to work strictly according to rule. It was decided to conduct this at the container terminal, where members of the alternative trade union dominated. Moreover, this was a very ‘painful’ point, because here there was a large turnover of ships. At the initial stage a meeting of the collective with representatives of the administration was conducted, at which they discussed questions of health and safety and preservation of the equipment. The administration understood very well what this was all about, nevertheless they had to agree with the decision of the trade union on the need ‘carefully to observe technical safety’ and ‘the careful use of the mechanisms and equipment’. Immediately after this, frequent stoppages began, which then developed into a single continuous stoppage. At this point the managerial feebleness of the technical specialists appeared, who did not have the necessary regulating documents, relying on the experience and skills of the dockers. The strike lasted about two weeks, which was a serious test for the participants and the trade union leaders. But as a result the employer agreed to increase pay. In this case, as in the previous one, the increase was larger than the workers had expected. The dockers had demanded an increase in the tariff Scale of 13%, but the employer agreed to a 30% increase in the scale. Thanks to this, pay in the Vostochnyi port on average amounted to 24,000 roubles. For comparison: in the neighbouring port of Nakhodkao, where they did not manage to organise a strike, pay at the same time amounted to 13,000 roubles.

In both cases we can observe the same pattern: a strike succeeds for the workers, when they have exceptional capability, that is for those who have their hands on the ‘main switch’. Those who do not have such a ‘main switch’ in their hands do not seem to be able to organise a strike.

Court actions to assert the interests of organisations and employeesThe submission of cases on the violation of the labour rights of particular workers to the courts is another means of struggle of the alternative trade unions for workers’ rights. This cannot really be considered to be their ‘company’ direction of activity, like strikes. But the results of the many alternative trade unions are impressive. Above all, successful practice has developed in the associations of alternative trade unions. Dozens of cases have been won every year, hundreds of people have received help from the trade unions in pressing their rights in the court, millions of roubles of pay have been recovered – each of the centres has been involved in such actions. As examples one can cite the centres in Kaliningrad, Yekaterinburg (The centre ‘Sutyazhnik’), Novosibirsk (‘Siberian Regional Trade Union Centre’), Vladivostok (Primor’e Confederation of Labour) and others. A couple of years ago there were more such centres, but many of them, as a result of a sharp reduction in membership of the alternative trade unions have evolved towards legal defence activity. Such centres are the former Confederation of Free Labour (Voronezh) and ‘the Academy of Human Rights’ (Petropavlovsk-Kamchatka).

The structure of the existing trade union centres is as follows: apart from the full-time trade union leaders, various specialists – lawyers, economists and so on – work for them. They work on various bases. Many of them are paid out of grants from international humanitarian and trade union organisations directed at the support of democratic reform, the struggle with poverty and so on. But in recent times there has been a tendency for the trade unions themselves to begin to assign money to maintain the specialists. For example, in the Siberian regional trade union centre they have already created an economic-analytical department, consisting of five people, in which three specialists are paid from trade union funds. In St Petersburg, the dockers trade union has created a consulting centre, which is completely supported by the trade union and income from its own activity. In the Primor’e Confederation of Labour two of the four lawyers are paid by trade unions which are part of the Confederation.

In fact there is a process of formation of trade union service organisations, which serve the trade unions and their members. The most widespread cases are delays in the payment of wages or the non-payment of particular additional payments (overtime, additional payments for harmful working conditions, for skills and so on). Such cases have become routine for all the trade

unions which undertake such practice. More complex cases are those related to the bankruptcy of enterprises. Here the trade unions can provide help not only in obtaining compensation payments and liquidating debts for these payments, but also to avert sham bankruptcies. In particular, in 2004 the lawyers and economists of the Siberian regional trade union centre managed to avert the bankruptcy of one of the repair enterprises of the local construction centre, thus preventing the dismissal of more than 100 people.

New directions in the activity of the alternative trade unions.A new direction in the activity of the alternative trade unions has been activity to protect citizens from the arbitrariness of common of services. Several trade unions, using the potential of their lawyers, able to conduct firm and fastidious dialogue with the authorities at raise the limit price increases the communal expenditures. They have managed to do this by the trade union specialists checking the validity of the established tariffs hand, if they see that there are not invalid, then through the courts they obtain a recalculation of communal payments.

At the moment this practice is not very widespread. The Siberian regional trade union centre (Novosibirsk) has achieved really significant success in this. But a number of other trade union centres are beginning to act in this direction, and most important, the experience of the Siberian trade union centre is in such demand by other trade unions (and not only alternative ones) that they are now preparing a series of seminars devoted to the methods of proving the validity of communal service tariffs and methods of asserting the interests of the population.

At first sight, the participation of trade unions in the struggle for communal service tariffs looks like a departure from trade union activity towards activities in defence of common citizens’ rights. But this is how the President of the Siberian trade union centre described how they arrived at the need to act in this direction. ‘Trade union members began to appeal to us, both directly and through the Presidents of primary organisations: help us – this is real robbery. As soon as we manage to get a little more, then immediately they increase communal service tariffs by the same amount. Here the price of removing rubbish, there the cost of heating… and this situation does not only arise for employees in the public sector’. The fact that in the framework of this struggle they have come to assert the interests not only of trade union members but also of other categories of citizens is an inevitable consequence.43 As the president of the trade union centre says, ‘we had to concern ourselves with communal services for our members, because we had lost almost all possibilities of increasing their pay’. Actually, at the present time a mass of public sector workers (teachers, health workers, cultural workers and so on) are financed from the local budgets. Considering that the majority of regions in Russia are in deficit, hopes of significant increases in pay have come to seem almost unrealistic. Thus a new direction in the activity of the trade unions has developed – ‘the struggle to preserve the purse’. This has become necessary when the means for ‘the struggle to fill up the purse’ seem to have disappeared. Incidentally, one can observe a very high connection between the attitude of the trade unions to the new direction and whether or not there is money in the industry. The air traffic controllers, dockers, miners, as a rule have a negative attitude to the activity of workers to ‘preserve the purse’. In general it is related to the fact that the trade unions in enterprises such as ports, air traffic control, coal extraction and so on the possibilities for action in the strategy of ‘filling up the purse’ are far from exhausted. However, the trade unions of public sector workers, communal service workers (paradoxically) and enterprises with low pay willingly take up arms for such ‘saving methods’, since for them ‘saving the purse’ is the only means of asserting the

43 Discussion about what is and what is not trade union activity raged pretty fiercely in Novosibirsk. For example, according to one specialist of the trade union centre, the leaders of the local organisation of air traffic controllers consider this to be a one hundred percent departure from trade union activity and refuse to collaborate with the trade union centre on this issue. However, their rebuke related to the fact that now the trade union is defending pensioners and other citizens is hardly well-founded. After all, in the past the trade union defended not only its members, but all workers, including those who were not trade union members.

interests of their members. The fact that they also defend the interests of other groups of the population is inevitable and indeed helps to increase the authority of the trade union centres among the population.

The effectiveness of this direction of activity might be very high. For example, the greatest achievement of the Siberian regional trade union centre was a victory in the court in the town of Lineva, where the norms and rates for water supply in December 2004 were disputed. As a result the increase in the consumption norms and tariffs was shown to be invalid and each of the 20,000 families in this small town received, in the form of recalculation, from 1000 to 2500 roubles. The total amount came to about 25 million roubles. Lineva is a small town (not long ago it was an urban-type settlement) created alongside a large electrode factory, and the majority of its inhabitants are workers at this factory. The trade union organisation of the factory over recent years has been reduced under the pressure of the administration. But the staff of the Siberian regional trade union centre commented on the situation thus: ‘these are our former members and we helped them. They left us under the pressure of the administration. They know who did this, they thank us, they say “mentally we are together!”. We understand that if the pressure weekens, then they will be ours again!’.

Apart from the Siberian regional trade union centre, such efforts have been undertaken by trade union representatives in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatka (Kamchatka oblast’), Yekaterinburg and elsewhere.

Thus the alternative trade unions have justified their name and in conditions of pressure on the trade unions and reduction of their opportunities -- in fact in conditions of a narrowing of the trade union field, they have found new methods of defending the interests of their members. In fact they have begun to work in what are, for Russian trade unions, new directions to defend the members of the trade union from unjustified charges or in 'saving the purses' of trade union members.

Organisational structure of the alternative trade unions, problems of membership.There have not been any radical changes in the organisational structure of the alternative trade unions in recent years. The majority of organisations, as in the past, have a three level structure: primary group -- regional association -- Federal association. Indeed, in recent years organisations have appeared which in general do not enter anywhere, or are limited to the regional level. In general one can note that the federal level of representation of alternative trade unions is weak. Above all, this is a matter of the low authority of the leadership of KTR and VKT. The leaders of primary organisations give several reasons for the low authority of the federal associations. First, is their low membership numbers, in comparison with FNPR. The activism and significance of the activity of the alternative trade unions is absolutely imperceptible, when you look at the trade unions from the point of view of their numbers -- they are dwarfs in comparison with FNPR. And nobody pays any attention to the fact that membership of the alternative trade unions is deliberate, while membership of the traditional unions is formal. The other version is that the leadership of the trade unions at the federal level is entrusted not to those who can best represent the trade union association, but to those who can be maintained most cheaply. And above all, that is those who live in Moscow, who do not need payment for housing and so on. These are people separated from the real trade union activity, incorporated into some structures and afraid for their jobs, afraid of conflict with the authorities. It seems that there is some foundation for both versions. But it is hardly possible to change this and the alternative trade unions continue to rely on themselves and on participation in humanitarian programmes, which now and then make it possible for them to develop new directions and to develop the trade union infrastructure: to employ experts, to conduct training, to publish newspapers and so on.

One cannot ignore one other fact, which is the appearance in Moscow of trade union adventurists. This is a reference to the so-called 'trade Union Centre', headed by Mikhail Kislyuk. This organisation and its leaders aspire to leadership of the 'independent trade unions'. Kislyuk himself represents 'businessmen who are worried about the fate of the workers’ movement and the foundation on which it stands'.44 Despite the scandalous reputation of its leader, the trade union centre is beginning to gain popularity among representatives of the alternative trade unions. In the Moscow office of the trade union centre they regularly conduct training, round tables and conferences, to which they invite representatives of the regional alternative trade unions at the expense of the trade union centre. However, there is no reliable information about the source of the funds of the trade union centre to maintain an office in a prestigious district and similar expenses.45 At the end of 2004, the trade union centre even conducted a congress of workers, in which representatives and very many regions participated. Their participation in the activity of the trade union centre was explained by many leaders approximately thus: 'Yes, we do not know who they are. But, first, they really hold quite good seminars, good specialists give lectures. Why not use it, why not listen? Moreover this does not cost us anything. Second, it is a chance to communicate. Now it is rare that people can come from various regions. We must use this'. It is most likely that the trade union centre will demand some political steps from the participants in its work, but at the moment what is going on there is a process of winning confidence.

The most significant change in the organisational activity of the alternative trade unions is the reduction in the number of organisations and the reduction of membership. We have already discussed the reduction of membership. One can only add that this process is also going on in the traditional trade unions. The only difference is that here departure from the trade union is also undertaken consciously and often as a means of preserving the person's employment. In this respect the phrase 'mentally together' sometimes stops being ironic. The leaders of organisations who experience pressure on themselves and their members urge the workers not to resist and to leave the organisation. It is more important to preserve people's jobs, particularly because in that way the possibility of a revival of the organisation is preserved. Although the situation of the leaders themselves may be very dramatic. In the already mentioned case of the struggle over the bankruptcy of a repair enterprise in Novosibirsk oblast’, after the enterprise had been saved from bankruptcy by decision of the court, the jobs preserved and people received compensation, the new management organised heavy pressure on the trade union. As a result, practically all the members of the trade union were forced to sign declarations resigning from the trade union and the organisation collapsed. The woman who was the leader of this organisation ,who had fought for the enterprise for several years, had won several difficult court cases together with the Siberian regional trade union centre, was hospitalised with a nervous breakdown. Her recovery took several months, and she lost her job when she came out.

Attempts to resist lead to even more grievous consequences, because when people leave, the active members of the trade union, the spirit of resistance disappears. And subsequently everything is repeated anew -- new people come to understand the need to create a trade union, they commit all the mistakes of growth, they accumulate experience, which their predecessors already had. This requires years, and in the light of the consequences described the anti-trade 44 M. Kislyuk in 1989 was the economist of the Chernigovskii opencast mine (Berezovskii, Kemerovo oblast’) and after the famous miners’ strike became a member of the regional workers’ committee. Then, after the events of 1991, as a defender of the White House at the time of the pooch he was noticed by Boris Yeltsin and nominated as the Governor of Kuzbass. As Governor of Kuzbass, Kislyuk turned Kemerovo oblast’ into the epicentre of the strike movement in Russia. He was dismissed from the post of Governor at the beginning of July 1997 under the pressure of all the trade unions of the oblast’, which on the 11th of July (the anniversary of the miners’ strike) called an all-Kuzbass protest action. One of the main demands of the trade unions was the dismissal of Kislyuk.45 In fairness it should be noted that practically all organisations which work with the trade unions and invite them to Moscow or to other cities pay all of their expenses. But, as a rule, the source of their funds is not hidden. This is money from grants, international trade union organisations and so on. In this case nothing is said about the sources, there are only rumours that this money comes from Boris Berezovsky, who is trying to tame the trade unions.

union significance of the 2002 Labour Code becomes clear. In fact, thanks to this the institutional development of trade unions has been halted, the experience of interaction of employers and employees has been lost, the faith of people in liberal and democratic values has been lost.

Those alternative trade union organisations which remain are actively using every means of survival available to them. They use dual membership particularly actively, when a worker is a member of two trade unions: of the traditional trade union on the order of the boss, and the alternative by his own conviction. In accordance with the labour legislation, the employer now has the right to demand a list of members from the trade union. Obviously it is not advantageous to the trade union to provide this list, because the list of members of a disagreeable trade union is immediately turned into a 'blacklist' for dismissal. Thus in many trade unions a so-called war of lists has developed. The trade unions do not include in their list all their members because of the fear of exposing them. This undermines their position by reducing the number of members. But as if this is not enough, the traditional trade unions have begun to include in their constitutions the demand that 'a member of the trade union (their trade union) cannot also be a member of any other (read alternative) trade union'. In some cases they even check through the accounts department that nobody is paying dues at the same time to two organisations. Moreover, they send their observers to meetings of alternative trade unions in order to check that none of the members of the traditional trade union have gone there and to identify who does go there. Of course, there are always antidotes to such clumsy attempts. The position with dues is resolved thus: a worker with dual membership pays dues to the traditional trade union by check-off through the accounts department (having signed the corresponding declaration) but pays dues to the alternative trade union in cash. Many organisations are taking the decision to abolish membership dues altogether. In this case there is no need to account for them, for current needs the members of the trade union are thrown off as required.

The problem of dues requires particular attention. Only large and rich organisations can exist on dues. They are able to maintain the apparatus of the trade union committee, organise trips of activists to international trade union meetings and so on.

The majority of alternative trade unions are not rich. Thus there is a view among them that you cannot survive on dues. Active trade unions which do not want to throw up their hands find various means of preserving their function. The story of the dockers’ trade union in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatka is indicative. After the defeat of the trade union and mass dismissals the trade union had no dues. But activists and specialists of this trade union committee registered it as a 'nonstate educational institution for additional provision of professional education "Academy of Human Rights"' in order to be able to minimise their taxes as an educational institution, and at the same time to be able to receive grants from non-commercial and humanitarian projects. As a result, the trade union committee improved its quality, having at the same time preserved many of its functions, but also simultaneously having widened the sphere of its activity.

Overall, it is too early to speak of the complete destruction of the alternative trade unions, although their membership has been significantly reduced. The leaders of the alternative trade unions display a miracle of survivability and contrive to preserve their organisations, even if in a transformed form. But most important, they are trying to preserve the experience, people and traditions of trade union work.

Conclusion.The split in the trade union movement which arose in 1991 has still not been overcome. The trade union movement in Russia has remained split until now. On the one hand, FNPR, with a large number of formal members and conservative apparatus, and on the other side small trade unions oriented to trade unionist values and the firm assertion of the interest of workers. Over

the past 14 years the split has made the role of the alternative trade unions clear. They master new methods of regulating quickly changing social-labour relations in Russia. Unfortunately neither at the political nor at the economic level is this role recognised. These organisations are considered harmful, speculating on the difficulties of the reform period and so on. Even more unfortunately, the role of alternative trade unions is not understood and not perceived in the largest trade union association in FNPR. At the lower level of primary and regional organisations FNPR has become the main persecutor of the alternative trade unions. They use any means to weaken their competitors and discredit their leaders. The words 'trade union solidarity', 'common approach', 'common interests' making absolutely hollow sound when it comes to the interaction of traditional and alternative trade unions. After the adoption of the new labour code the traditional trade unions instead of trying to create a 'United front' to oppose antiworker policies, on the contrary, increased their pressure on the alternative trade unions. One can say a solid basis that there is a war to distraction from the traditional trade unions.

It is not difficult to suggest that in such conditions the trade union movement only becomes weaker, particularly if one takes into account the fact that there is a struggle of large organisations with more competent ones. As a result both lose organisational potential. But the exodus of members from the trade unions has already reached threatening proportions. If one considers that in 2000 one quite often heard in lower-level organisations the idea of unifying the trade unions, then now, unfortunately, no such path can be seen not only to unification but even to elementary interaction.

It seems that the alternative trade unions have already reached a peak in the fall of membership. Having found new forms of work (the creation of trade union service centres, the struggle to 'save the purse' and others), they attract the sympathy of workers and citizens, creating an understanding of the need for trade unions. One can even say that if the trade unions get stronger, or the pressure on them is somewhat reduced, then the number of members of the alternative trade unions might sharply increase. They will not only get back all those who left under pressure but also attract new members.

V. Il’in, O. Filatova: The Political Activity of Russian Trade Unions.

Tradition and contemporaneityThe Russian trade unions are the direct successors of the Soviet trade unions, acting on the basis of the Leninist principle: 'trade unions are the transmission belts of the party to the masses'. The traditions of the domestic trade unions consist in a high level of integration of trade union and state apparatuses and the subordination of the former to the 'interests of the state'.

One of the traditional forms of integration of the trade union into the state apparatus is the existence of a single nomenclature of personnel. This made it possible to make a career successively in Soviet, party and trade union apparatuses. Moreover, the latter constituted the lowest level in this nomenclature chain. This meant that a meritorious worker, not competent to work in state or party apparatus, could be sent 'to strengthen' this or that trade union body.

The traditions of Soviet trade unions could not simply die in the period of collapse of the Communist political system. The basic trade union structures were preserved, in the 1990s many trade union workers of the Soviet epoch kept their posts and trained new personnel with the support not only of their own present but also their past experience. Thus, the transformation of Soviet trade unions ensured the transfer of the traditions of collaboration with the state into the new epoch.

However, the relations of trade unions with parties were determined and are determined by the political strength of the latter, their ability to be part of the mechanism of lobbying in legislative bodies. The weakness of the Party to a considerable extent determined the relatively indifferent attitude to it on the part of the leaders of trade union bodies. Only with the appearance of United Russia, managing to take control of the Duma, increased the significance of trade union-party links, and even then only with that party. Indeed, as a result of the deeply bureaucratic character of that party, these relations have an extremely contradictory character.

New (alternative) trade unions arose as the negation of the former system of transmission belts, as an organisation of the conflict your resolution of social problems. Hence that particular interest in mass actions can strikes, pickets, demonstrations. However, when the potential of mass action began to four, the new trade unions had to master the sight of compromise and negotiation, borrowing a great deal from the experience of the traditional trade unions.

Rotation of leading cadres.The formal nomenclature, united for all organs of power, management and social organisation disappeared together with the leading role of the Communist party of the Soviet Union in the political system. However informal channels for the rotation of personnel from one system to another survived into the post-Soviet period. It is very difficult to see the logic of this movement, characteristic of the nomenclatura system. Each case has its own logic.

At the beginning of the 1990s, the president of the Komi Federation of trade unions, V. Torlopov, used his post as a tramline for election to the Republican legislative body, where he became president, and then the head of the executive power having become head of the Komi Republic. In 2005 the Federation of trade unions of St Petersburg and Leningrad oblast’ was headed by V. Derbin -- a clear contemporary example of the rotation of personnel between state and trade union apparatuses. For 17 years he had been a full-time trade union official, and from 1996 occupied the post of president of the St Petersburg Committee on Labour and Social Protection of the Population. According to rumours, in the pre-election struggle for the post of president of the Federation of trade unions, V. Derbin was supported by one of the vice-governors of the city. He formulated his competitive advantage thus: 'I have experience of work on both sides of the barricades: both on the side of trade unions, and on the side of the administration and employers’. In these same elections another candidate for the same post was S. Eremeev, prorector of the St Petersburg State University, who, many people considered, was supported by the other vice governor of the city. Moreover, some of the mass media asserted that already at the beginning of the 1990s S. Eremeev was related through his business with the then president of the committee of the city government for external relations, V. Putin, from which this candidate got support from representatives of the presidential administration. Until 1993 he had been a full-time trade union official for 15 years (Mukhin, 2005:8).

What is the motivation of the struggle that trade union post? It is very difficult to judge the real motives of the participants, however local commentators from the mass media frankly reported that the trade unions still had under their control solid real estate, which was an attractive factor.

For the alternative trade unions the existence of such channels of rotation of personnel is not characteristic. They do not have property, the majority of them are pretty weak, so they cannot serve to any extent as an attractive step in the career of a politician or bureaucrat.

General principles of the relations of trade unions with parties.In the process of transformation of Soviet trade unions the former strict vertical hierarchy, resting on the principle of 'democratic centralism' has practically disappeared. In the post-Soviet period the traditional trade unions preserved the former branch structure, covering the whole country had packed practically all branches of the economy. However, the connections within it were mainly formal.

As a result every trade union body has a substantial degree of freedom in searching for and using political levers to realise its aims. Different leaders have different ideas about political expediency, so quite often central and regional bodies act in the political sphere with a disbalance derived from the particular features of their political outlooks, taking into account the position of the regional organisations of various parties. So it is difficult to speak about the common political line of the traditional Russian trade unions. Even at the level of regions and cities leaders could not and cannot be confident that their political alliances and promises would be adopted as a guide to action in the primary organisations. And there are certainly not any guarantees that the political sympathies of the leaders will be shared by ordinary members of the trade unions.

From this follows the dominant line in the Russian traditional trade unions in the post-Soviet epoch of depoliticisation and a distancing from political parties. This is not so much a conscious policy as a line which takes into account the real situation. Each trade union unites people of very different political convictions. Their motivation for membership has no relation to their political orientations, so any attempts to politicise the trade unions risks a split between the leaders and ordinary members.

Certainly, in lobbying for the resolution of particular social questions in the organs of power, the trade union leaders conducted and conduct consultation with representatives of those parties which express sympathy with their positions. This is a completely pragmatic approach. It is not the parties themselves, but their deputies, which are of interest. The relations of trade unions and parties are expressed basically not in political declarations and official measures, but in everyday practice, expressing their attitudes to particular questions of social policy.

As a rule, contemporary Russian trade union leaders base themselves on the principle of the independence of trade unions from political parties. And this principle follows not so much from their political convictions, as from their sober assessment of the real situation: every trade union consists of people having the most varied political convictions; particularly close relations of the leaders with any particular party might only undermine their authority with the masses. Hence the aspiration to distance themselves from parties which is characteristic of the whole post-Soviet period, confining themselves exclusively to practical contacts, not connecting themselves either with an expression of ideological sympathy, or longer-term and solid unions. In fact, this principle has been confirmed gradually as a result of the consideration of accumulated experience.

The traditional trade unions were initially particularly careful in their relations with parties. They were suspected of continuing and parents to their nearest principle of trade unions as the transmission belts from the party to the masses. Therefore they industriously emphasised the distance between them and any parties.

Although many leaders of the trade union apparatus at various levels had emerged from the nomenclatura of the CPSU, this did not to any degree determine their sympathies for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. The traditions of the Soviet trade unions are to rely on the instruments of state power, and not on connections with communist ideology. Moreover, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is an opposition party, so any clear connections with it would weaken the possibility of the trade union apparatus finding a common language with the anti-Communist mood of the authorities.

However, state power in Russia for a long time had an unstable and indeterminate party character. The parties of power (Russia's Democratic Choice, Our Home Russia) which appeared had a weak influence in Parliament and did not enjoy the unequivocal support of the president, they quickly arose and equally quickly departed to the periphery of Russian politics. Thus settled relations with them did not make any sense from the point of view of lobbying, and were dangerous from the point of view of relations with the mass of ordinary members of the trade union.

The traditional trade unions and United Russia.The appearance of United Russia, positioning itself as the only party unequivocally supporting the president and obtaining a majority in the Duma and occupying a centrist position, created a radically new situation in the party system: it constituted the transmission belt from the Kremlin to the masses. And FNPR tried to use this belt, as well as the leadership of United Russia.

However, attitudes to collaboration with the party of power in the traditional trade unions are ambiguous. The president of the Ivanovo regional association of trade union organisations, A.N.Mirskii, declared: 'some activists of the trade union movement have expressed the view that trade unions should not under any circumstances collaborate with the ruling party, since none of its decisions will fully respond to the demands of the trade union movement. Such an approach, resting on personal experience, I would call anarcho-syndicalist. It is not shared by the majority of the trade union movement of the world, where strategic partnership between the trade unions and the parties in power are more the rule than the exception. Thus, from time immemorial such collaboration has existed between the Swedish trade unions and the Social Democratic party which has ruled there for many decades, between the trade unionists and the ruling Labour Party in Great Britain, between the Japanese trade unions and the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan. Since the middle of the 20th century the Democratic Party has been the constant partner of the American trade unions, not even breaking this partnership when it became the ruling party. The interest of the party and the trade union far from always coincide, and collaboration does not in the least imply unconditional subordination or rejection of mutual criticism'.

To meet the wishes of the leaders of the traditional trade unions, the leadership of United Russia and the presidential administration departed from the principle practised in the first half of the 1990s of the formal equi-distancing of the authorities from the rival trade unions while in practise supporting the alternative right trade unions (example NPG). The departure from this principle had already begun in the second half of the 1990s, when the Kremlin began to understand that it was more advantageous to rely on the most powerful and not the loyal democratic trade unions. The most important concession to the traditional trade unions was the transformation of their committees in enterprises and in the regions into key actors in the system of social partnership.

FNPR and the Liberal-Democratic Party. The Liberal-Democrats, occupying a conspicuous place on the right wing of the political spectrum, in principle relate negatively to all trade unions, not excluding the FNPR. The trade unions respond to them in the same way. In principle they distance themselves one from the other, but sometimes their paths intersect.

Thus, on 7th September 2004 the Moscow city committee of FNPR trade unions organised a meeting against terror. V. Zhirinovskii tried to speak at it, but was rejected, which gave rise to conflict. The LDPR leadership appealed to the prosecutor, accusing the trade union leaders of violating the law 'On the status of deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation'. In passing it denounced the very essence of this meeting: 'it considers the meeting which took place to be a complete profanation. People gathered on theVasil’evskii Slope not of their own accord, although there were such people, but, basically, they were forced together on the orders of bureaucrats. Once again, as happened in the historical past, so-called quotas were assigned to institutions, universities, factories, and so on. In this way the “attendance" at the meeting was ensured. Even with a surplus. Bureaucrats know how to work when they are driven with a club. But of the 135,000 people, a small part were those who went to the meeting because of the dictates of their hearts. We have once again received in a pure form a “Potemkin meeting”’.

The alternative right trade unions and parties. In the first influential alternative trade unions at the dawn of their history there was a strong anti-Communist ideology, which repelled them from the Communists only because they were Communists. This ideological component pushed them into collaboration with the liberal parties. For example, the Independent miner's union (NPG) at the beginning of the 1990s established quite close relations with the liberal reformers and then with the party Democratic Choice of Russia. This was a paradoxical informal union: the coal industry has very limited chances of surviving without substantial state support, while the liberals stood for total privatisation, the curtailing of state subsidies and the closure of all unprofitable mines. It required some time for the leaders of NPG to realise the illogicality of such a political orientation. Towards the middle of the 1990s this initial liberal orientation of the trade union was transformed into a deeply pragmatic political orientation: establishing contacts with anybody who would help to lobby the miners ' interests. By a similar route the air-traffic controllers’ trade union also changed strategy.

Communists and trade unions. The main principles of work of communist with trade unions were formulated by V. I. Lenin at the beginning of the 1920s: where there is a mass of workers, including in ‘reactionary’ trade unions, taking a conciliatory position in relation to bourgeois power. And in principle the contemporary Russian Communist do not reject the relevance of this principle.

However, the traditional trade unions, oriented to achieving their aims through close relations with state power, try to avoid open contact with the Communists, fearing that this might damage their image in the eyes of their partners in power. Thus the trade union leaders carefully distance themselves from all the communist parties.

In their turn the Communists try to realise the Leninist tactical principle in their work in the trade unions. This process proceeds in two directions:

1. the development of close relations with 'revolutionary' alternative trade unions.

2. The development of relations with particular local trade union leaders, presidents of trade union committees, by virtue of any particular reasons considered advantageous for collaboration with the Communists. The existing decentralisation of the traditional trade unions provides a space for autonomous political alliances.

Thus the leadership of the KPRF accommodates on its web site a list of 'brother trade unions': the coordinating committee of the trade union of transport workers of Russia, the workers movement of Kazakhstan Solidarnost', the association of workers of the trade unions ‘Zashchita truda', the all-Ukraine union of workers, the trade union of automobile transport and road industry workers of the Russian Federation, the Eurasian Association of trade union organisations of universities, the Ivanovo oblast’ Association of trade union organisations, the Association of Russian trade unions SOTSPROF, the Samara oblast’ trade union federation, the student trade union committee of Samara State University, the Krasnoyarskii krai trade union federation, the Russian trade union of atomic energy and industry workers, the Russian trade union of railway locomotive brigades, the Sheremetevo trade union of air stewards, the Russian trade union of textile and light industry workers, the Perm’ oblast trade union Council, the Tomsk oblast’Federation of trade union organisations, the student trade union committee of the Siberian State medical University, the trade union committee of students of MAU.

The logically contradictory character of this list is striking: here are radical left trade unions, and particular regional federations of the traditional trade unions, and the trade union bodies of several neighbouring countries. One has to approach such a list very cautiously, understanding it as a list of organisations with which the KPRF has had more or less intense practical contacts. As research experience shows, often various political parties have used even very superficial and pragmatic contacts with trade unions to demonstrate their influence. And only the active

indignation of the trade union leaders has led to the deletion of their trade union body from the list of official trade unionists. But some trade union leaders do not know that they are included in this list, others do not see any sense in making a fuss about it.

Extreme left communist organisations relate very negatively both to the traditional trade unions and to the alternative right trade union associations, characterising them as 'agents of the bourgeoisie' in the workers’movement, whose role is to extinguish the dissatisfaction and protest activity of the workers. In the Russian communist workers party (RKRP) this was defined in the resolution 'on trade unions' adopted at the subdued eighth Congress of the RKRP, in similar resolutions of the sixth Congress of the SRKSS (March 1998), and in the resolution of the same name at the second Congress of the RKSM(B) (October 1998).

A particular case is the so-called 'workers trade unions'. The clearest example is Zashchita, an organisation which arose in October 1991. They position themselves as an association of a particular kind. The co-president of the ORP Zashchita, V. G. Gamov, characterised their particular features thus:

'workers trade unions are not a party. But they are also not only trade unions. If one takes the current moment, then above all the analog of the workers of Zashchita is those workers’ Soviets which directed the Russian Revolution of 1917. In Zashchita the activity of various parties and organisations is combined, between whose positions there are well-known differences, but between which there is no difference on the fundamental issue -- in relation to the role of the working-class in current and future events in Russia. Zashchita is closely related to the strike committees and workers’ committees, its committees themselves, as the experience of strikes and actions conducted by the trade union shows, are easily transformed into strike committees or into workers councils, taking on not only professional but also political leadership of the mass of workers'. 46

Such trade unions are open to collaboration with parties, but with one reservation: on the banner of the party must appear the slogan 'dictatorship of the proletariat'.

Agrarian trade unions and left parties.The Agrarian Party is on the left of the political spectrum in Russia. The trade unions of the agro-industrial complex and Rosagropromsoyuz [the employers’ organisation] collaborate more or less actively with it.

Alexander Davydov, deputy of the State Duma of Russia, president of the Central committee of the trade union of workers of the agro-industrial complex and simultaneously a member of the executive of the Agrarian Party of Russia, formulated thus the political relations of his trade union: 'Our trade union stood at the source of the formation of a new political party of Russia, regarding as paramount the struggle for the vital interests of the national breadwinners in the face of the violent activity of state power at the centre and locally. We and the Agrarian Party have many common directions of activity. And only by joint efforts with the Agropromsoyuz and with other left-wing patriotic forces, including the KPRF, can demand of the authorities at all levels that they turn to the peasants and get rid, finally, of the food 'needle' of the West. Our trade union is 80% with the Communists and 20% with the APR. This must be taken into account. The trade union of workers of the agro industrial complex intends in future to act purposefully in a union with the left-patriotic forces, the KPRF and the APR, to overcome the underestimation by the authorities and society of the role of their peasant-providers. All the more because in Russia there is every possibility not only to feed plentifully the whole population, but also the people of other countries. The toilers of the agricultural industry are ready to accept this call of time and hope for the support of the authorities and society'.

46 Гамов В.П. Рабочая партия и профсоюзы.

The trade unions and Rodina.The new political association Rodina immediately at its beginning developed relations with the trade unions. The socially redistributive orientation of the policy of this political organisation created a space for the realisation of common aims. 'Work with branch trade unions and integration of their leaders into our ranks must be the basic cadre policy of the party ', considers the president of the body of a Rodina deputies, Dmitrii Rogozin. He also noted that Rodina pursues close collaboration with the trade unions, since 'the trade union movement is our main ally'.

On the 21st of September 2004 at a session of the Rodina fraction of deputies, two collaboration agreements were signed: with the Russian Association of Higher Education Institution Student Trade Union Organisations and the Independent union of coal miners.

At the same time the fraction has a very negative attitude to FNPR. In the Statement of the Rodina Party addressed to leaders of the FCNP, it says: 'in the context of this problem the position of the leadership of FNPR is bewildering, since it consists in the aspiration to a rapprochement with the United Russia fraction to the prejudice of the interests of the mass of citizens, as is shown by the conclusion of an agreement between the United Russia party and the movement Soyuz truda, which is in essence an organisation of FNPR'. The existence of an agreement between FNPR and United Russia could be considered a guarantee against the infringement of the social rights of Russians. However, as the authors of the statement consider, the real policy of the government of the Russian Federation and the United Russia fraction in the State Duma is not directed at the resolution of the primary task, the struggle against poverty. In relation to this, members of the Rodina party urged the President of FNPR, V.M. Shmakov and his deputy, president of the Duma committee of the Labour and social policy, A. K. Isaev ' to decide on which side of the barricades they are, whose interests they are defending: the interests of the workers in relation to the authorities or the interests of the authorities in relation to the workers'.

In Novosibirsk oblast’ in August 2004 a roundtable was organised at which they discussed problems troubling the young people of Novosibirsk. It was conducted by Novosibirsk activists of Rodina with the participation of representatives of the student trade unions and delegates from youth organisations of Novosibirsk oblast. The participants in the roundtable set out to the essence of the problems which Novosibirsk students confronted and concluded an agreement about joint resistance 'to the measures of the government of the Russian Federation directed at worsening the material situation of Russian young people'. In the course of the meeting a Coordination Council of youth organisations of the oblast’ was established, which was headed by a member of the Council of Rodina, president of the youth committee of the trade union organisations of the Siberian Federal district, Dmitrii Serbenko.

Trade unions and the Democratic party Yabloko.Yabloko, which had arisen as a left-liberal party, initially did not pay serious attention to work with trade unions, although it was not in principle opposed to them. In turn, some trade unions sometimes turned to deputies of the party to lobby them over particular issues. Gradually Yaqbloko moved to the left, positioning itself as defender of the interests of the intelligentsia employed in the budget sphere. The social problematic as a whole took an increasingly important place in its activity. This creates the space for joint activity with trade unions.

In 1995 in the elections to the State Duma they managed to create an electoral block between the political association Yabloko and the metal workers’ trade union (GMPR), which at that time was practically the only Russian trade union which participated in the election is s not only at the level of the central apparatus in Moscow but also in the regions. Yabloko got into the State Duma and created its own fraction, through which the president of the metal workers’ trade

union participated in the activity of parliamentary working groups and committees and in roundtables organised there. In its turn Yabloko, with the help of the trade union, could move closer to an understanding of the socio-economic processes in Russian industry, particularly in the regions, and monitor the implementation of several laws which had been adopted.

Summing up this episodic collaboration, one of the leaders of Yabloko wrote:

'The question of interaction with the trade unions in Russia today is one of the most complex and difficult for all parties and associations without exception... generally speaking the interaction of political parties and trade unions is natural. The trade unions concern themselves with the economic problems of workers, and engage in political actions as necessary -- they establish contacts with those parties which they most trust. The parties draw them in to work on laws, to their political activity, to participation in elections. There are mutual interests. But in reality this is not a simple question. It seems logical to take a critical attitude to trade unions and their associations and possibly it is more promising and sensible to work with those trade unions which are really trying to defend the rights and interests of workers, members of trade unions, on those questions about which there is mutual understanding'.

Since all parties and all trade unions declare an aspiration to defend the interests of wide strata of the population and try to a greater or lesser degree to do this, then determining the criteria for selecting partners constitutes a very subjective filter. Both sides, both parties and trade unions, decide themselves who, apart from them, is the 'authentic defender of the interests of the people'. And on the basis of this definition they construct their policy of unions and simply practical relations.

Since Yabloko did not manage to get into the State Duma in the subsequent parliamentary elections, the attraction of the party to the trade unions sharply fell. It is not in a condition to help in lobbying the interests of the trade unions and particular industries.

Union of Right Forces (SPS).SPS as a party with the clearly expressed within the program is usually seen as having business as its main social base. As a result of this the trade unions do not enter into the sphere of obvious interests of its leaders. But sometimes eminent figures from this party have appeared in the trade union space. Thus, S. Eremeev, former president of the political Council of SPS in St Petersburg, who has long experience of work in trade union bodies, was a candidate in 2005 for the post of president of the Trade Union Federation of St Petersburg and Leningrad oblast, although before the elections he resigned his membership of SPS, on the grounds that a trade union leader should not be engaged in any political force.

Lobbying in legislative bodies.From the beginning of the 1990s the idea of getting their representatives into elected bodies of state power at various levels became popular in the trade union apparatus. Sometimes a trade union body managed to develop a united position and put forward their own candidate. However, usually the trade unions did not manage anywhere to get the support of the mass of ordinary trade union members, so such candidates went forward in ordinary single mandate constituencies, and their chances of victory hardly depended at all on the declared decision of a trade union body. Confidence in the trade unions among the population in the post-Soviet period had only fallen, so the only important mechanisms of support were organisational, financial and material resources (providing a headquarters office, pages of the trade union press for the publication of agitational materials and so on). As a result of this trade union workers who got into elected bodies of state power rarely feel themselves to be representatives of the trade unions, and even less do they recognise any connection between their electoral successes and their membership of a trade union. Hence the problem of the independence of supposedly trade union deputies in relation to the trade union bodies which had supported them.

The most notable figure of this type is Andrei Isaev, president of the State Duma committee on labour and social policy. He finds himself in a contradictory situation: on the one hand, he is one of the leaders of the trade union movement of the country, but on the other he is a member of the pro-presidential duma fraction United Russia, which deliberately follows the line of the liberalisation of labour relations in the country, which implies the limitation of the rights of both workers and trade unions. The classic situation of ‘ours among the others’.

The process of interaction of FNPR and United Russia culminated in its institutionalisation, when on the 27th of July 2004 in Moscow an ‘Agreement on collaboration and interaction between the fraction of this party in the State Duma and the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia’ was signed. In the declaration on the adoption of this document, the meaning of this unification of forces was defined: ‘with the aim of building a civilised social state; improving the quality of life of the people; establishing institutions and social partnership in the Russian Federation; defending the lawful rights and interests of the workers; developing the economy and labour market; developing civil society; establishing social justice and democracy. The parties to the agreement consider that in the present period the main aim of social policy of the Russian Federation should be the creation of conditions providing a worthy life and free development of the individual, reducing the level of social inequality, increasing the incomes of the population, universal accessibility and socially acceptable quality of basic social services, guarantees of the necessary standard of living on the basis of the development of the economy and social sphere of the Russian Federation. The parties to the agreement intend to achieve the development of their inter relations on the basis of principles of social partnership and to observe the understandings defined by this agreement’.

Thanks to the close relationship of FNPR with United Russia, not one draft law concerned with the regulation of social relations has been considered without the participation of trade union representatives in its discussion, without their introduction of amendments and proposals. However, the legal products emerging from the Duma, as a rule, are directed at reducing those social guarantees and achievements which already existed either from the Soviet period or from the 1990s.

They have also tried to organise similar collaboration of the two parties in the regions. As the secretary of the political Council of the Novosibirsk regional division of the United Russia party, Yu. D. Glazychev said at a meeting of the round table ‘For Social Justice’ in which representatives both of the local section of the party United Russia and representatives of the budget sector trade unions participated on 22nd of April 2004, ‘we must go together with one another. And if there are questions, then let’s resolve them together. Working out our official position on all the problems that arise, so that in future we can draw up a package of proposals and put it forward for review by the deputies of the State Duma’. The formation of such a mechanism of interaction leads to United Russia and the trade unions which are members of FNPR taking responsibility for social policy.

The Labour code.The key point of disagreement of all the trade unions and the government was the Labour Code. The nucleus of the government opposed to the trade unions are the liberal economists. A. Isaev formulated their position thus:

‘The Centre for Strategic Development controlled by Gref prepared proposals for a medium-term development programme. The agreed variant of the Labour Code which we adopted was identified in it as a barrier to the development of market relations, it spoke of the need for further liberalisation of the hiring and dismissal of workers and reducing the influence and scope of the trade unions’.47

47 Итоги и перспективы законодательной работы // Солидарность. 12/01/05.

At the same time he also expressed his own position:

‘I consider that national holidays are those days which are undisputed celebrations of the whole people, not giving rise to aversion and rejection by a significant part of society. The 7th of November in this sense divides society, and to declare this day a national holiday when part of society does not consider it such is wrong’.

This was, on the one hand, an open addition to the position of United Russia and the Kremlin, and on the other, a call to the left parties, for which this was not simply ‘a red day on the calendar’, but a sacred date.

Preparation of the law on the monetisation of benefits.One of the critical situations which tested the mechanism of interaction of the traditional trade unions and United Russia was the preparation and development of a Law 122 on the monetisation of benefits. FNPR representatives, through the channels accessible to them in the State Duma, were involved in the development and amendment of this more, which had already given rise to many conflicts at the early stages of formulation of its basic positions. It was obvious to almost everybody that this law would lead to a deterioration of the social situation of a pretty wide layout of the population and might give rise to significant dissatisfaction. The air vent their representatives to find that their task as a boy being a possible negative consequences.

In the preparation of Law 122 in the State Duma several round table meetings were held, devoted to the preparation and consideration of amendments to the law and replacement of benefits with monetary compensation. The head of the social committee at the State Duma, Andrei Isaev, took part in these meetings. Representatives of social and associations proposed that the recipients of benefits should have the right to choose. ‘There must be a right to choose’, noted the Deputy President of the Federation of Independent trade Unions of Russia, Vitalii Bud’ko ‘and in any case, the scale of compensation must be sufficient and regularly indexed’.48

A protocol on the elaboration of the plan of action to implement the law and the social protection of citizens was signed on the 27th of July 2004 at a meeting of the leaders of the United Russia fraction in the State Duma and the leaders of FNPR. The protocol recorded that the obligations of United Russia related to the review of draft laws in the State Duma, on the assessment of the trade union leaders, had been fulfilled. The conditions which FNPR had put forward were taken into account in the amendments on the second reading.

In total FNPR submitted to the State Duma around 200 amendments. Many proposals of territorial member organisations were incorporated in amendments which were introduced in the State Duma by deputies and legislative bodies of the corresponding subjects of the Federation. Altogether at the second hearing deputies adopted 1060 amendments. These included 144 amendments introduced by members of MFDG Solidarity. As a result of the constructive interaction of FNPR and deputies of the State Duma amendments were adopted at the second hearing which corrected the draft law, taking into account the views of the trade unions.

Thus the optimistic statements of the FNPR leaders about their constructive work in improving Law 122 made the traditional trade unions in the eyes of society to a significant extent responsible for all the consequences.

At the same time, the leaders of the so-called ‘alternative’ trade unions declared that with this law the interests of millions of people were infringed and there was a danger that the quality of life would deteriorate. They promised to secure a review of several points of the new law jointly with the Social Solidarity Council. Its members emphasised that the leadership of the traditional trade union, FNPR, had no desire to struggle against the law on the monetisation of benefits. On

48 http://www.edinros.ru/news.html?id=68576

the contrary, the trade union figures close to the government had lobbied in every way for its adoption.

Mass actions.The bureaucratic games of the trade union leaders are effective only on condition that the state representatives sitting with them at the table are confident that their partners in the negotiations represent some kind of real force. To use the number of members of the trade unions as an argument is not very convincing, because it is generally known that the relations between the apparatus and the membership is very weak or completely absent. In these conditions the trade unions have to regularly provide a reminder of their existence to the authorities and society by particular kinds of mass action. The authorities do not like them, but often this is the onlyway to make themselves heard. As even if the leadership of F. N. PR is loyal to the President. They also have to resort to this instrument pressure.

In general, thanks to the all-Russian protest action of the 10 th of June 2004, FNPR managed to apply its social expertise before the first hearing of the draft law with the use of the mechanisms of the Russian Tripartite Commission for the Regulation of Social-Labour Relations. The resumption of the work of the RTK, which had been suspended since December 2003, was one of the demands of the June protest action of the trade unions which the government met.

Interaction with political organisations.In the course of mass actions trade union bodies regularly confront the problem of interaction with other organisations which are ready to demonstrate for the same cause and remind society, the mass media and the authorities of their existence. The most active users of the demonstration as a means of communication with the authorities are the left parties and organisations. Thus the trade union leaders run the risk that their text addressed to the authorities will turn out too radical and confrontational because of the abundant red flags and sharply anti-government slogans. The leadership of the traditional trade unions try to press the authorities gently, so as not to create an impression of opposition. And in order to maintain such a loyal image they try industriously to distance themselves from the opposition political forces.

The most obvious and large-scale joint action of the trade unions and the majority of political parties is the first of May demonstrations. Initially only the trade unions and left parties participated in them. At the beginning of the 21st-century far from left parties also actively participated. United Russia came out with a large column. With the help of a large number of white balls they designated themselves another pro-presidential organisation – ‘the party of life’.

In conducting the first of May demonstrations various symbolic indicators of social space have been applied. In recent years one single general demonstration has been organised. But every organisation has its own column under its own flags and slogans which distinguishes it from the general mass. At the first of May demonstration in 2004 in St Petersburg the organisers of the procession allowed the United Russia column to pass through first, and then, with a significant break, all the other columns. First came at the trade unions. The left columns with red flags were far behind them.

On the first of May 2003 all the columns in St Petersburg passed down Nevskii Prospekt, then the first part, the trade unions and centre-right parties, went to Palace Square, while the left columns turned on to Issakievskii Square. As a result the procession concluded with two meetings with the contradictory slogans and symbols.

The traditional trade unions try in the course of the demonstration to be close to the authorities, at the same time using this closeness to express their demands, often suggesting requests to correct the current social policy.

In the official report on the first of May demonstrations in Moscow (procession from Belorusskii Station to Tverskaya Square), it was reported that the leadership of FNPR, the Moscow Federation of trade unions, the Moscow Oblasti Association of Trade Union Organisations, the mayor of the city, members of the government of Moscow, deputies of the State Duma from the United Russia party and the Moscow city Duma took part.

The speeches of the trade union leaders and the resolutions adopted at the meeting had very contradictory contents. On the one hand, as the leader of FNPR M. Schmakov said, ‘Today we have a common slogan: "the best medicine against unemployment is high and merited pay. We have striven, are striving and will strive to achieve this demand". The assertion was heard of the need "to discuss the next Draconian laws, withdrawing benefits and replacing them with monetary compensation. In essence, these laws reverse all the achievements which we have made over the last terrible 10 years".

But at the same time the resolution of the trade union meeting reflected support for the President Vladimir Putin in the choice of priority socio-economic tasks, the struggle with poverty. 'We' it said 'are ready to participate in creating the conditions to double the gross domestic product of the country in the next 10 years'. And there was also the demand: 'a minimum wage no less than the subsistence minimum, relief of earnings less than the subsistence minimum from taxation, preservation of the rights and social guarantees of the workers, social responsibility for business'.

Since lobbying in the corridors of power was not sufficient, FNPR organised a mass protest action against the replacement of benefits with monetary compensation in 300 population centres in the country on the 10th June 2004. This was, on the one hand, an attempt to combine various mechanisms of pressure on the authorities, and on the other, a reflection of the heterogeneity of the traditional trade unions, where far from everybody had confidence in the effectiveness of close relations with the party of power.

The most notable mass actions of the last few years were the demonstrations against the so-called 'monetisation of benefits', which began in January 2005. On the 22nd of August 2004 President Putin signed federal law number 122. Millions of people whom it affected had not paid much attention to its contents, trusting the words of the President and other top leaders, who claimed that nobody would lose out from the monetisation of benefits. People did not pay attention to sceptical commentaries from the opposition mass media. And only after the New Year holidays, when the former beneficiaries left their homes, did they understand what they had lost and what they had got in exchange. Massive spontaneous protest actions began. The trade union bodies tried to stand aside.

The nucleus of the meetings (initially without any official decisions) were the pensioners. Their protests were used by several parties both to support the pensioners and to promote themselves. The most active, clever and striking participants in these meetings where the National-Bolshevik parties. Various communist organisations actively the participated in them. Less substantial, but all the same notable, was the participation of Yabloko, moving towards unity with the left parties against the existing regime, which it accused of abandoning democracy.

It is striking that the presence of the trade unions at the majority of meetings was not noticeable. The only exception was some left alternative trade unions. For example, the National Bolshevik party held a meeting on the 27th of January 2005 outside the building of the administration of Irkutsk oblast’. Around 300 people gathered. Apart from the National Bolsheviks, representatives of the party Working Russia and the SOTSPROF Association of Trade Unions of Russia participated. The Novgorod regional division of Yabloko together with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the trade unions organised a picket ‘benefits funeral'. In Kirov there was a meeting under the slogan 'leave the veterans their benefits' organised by the regional Department of Yabloko, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Russian Communist Workers Party. A number of local trade unions supported the action.

The leadership of FNPR took a critical attitude to these demonstrations. Their interpretation of these actions in general reproduced the definition of the State authorities: on the one hand, there really were inadequacies in the implementation of the law on the monetisation of benefits, but on the other hand these had been used by various political forces, exploiting popular dissatisfaction for their own purposes.

Summary.At the end of the 1980s the Soviet system of relations of the State party CPSU and the trade unions, which had existed for many decades, collapsed. However, its traditions have been preserved in post-Soviet Russia through various mechanisms of succession. For a long time these relations of trade union leaders and the State authorities were constructed on a contradictory and unsystematic basis (if one leaves out of account the bodies of social partnership). Only in the period of the presidency of Putin have more stable forms of relations of the leadership of the FNPR and the State Duma, United Russia, been established. These relations have contradictory consequences. On the one hand the trade union leaders manage to convey to the legislators their point of view without intermediaries, but on the other hand they have to take some of the responsibility for unpopular decisions taken by the authorities.

The other parties basically work with the alternative trade unions and particular leaders of the traditional trade unions which are part of FNPR. These relations are unstable and contradictory.

A new space for the interaction of political parties and trade unions is beginning to appear on the streets where mass demonstrations take place putting forward social demands to the authorities. Here in one form or another various trade unions and political parties participate, if not jointly, then in parallel.