Zashchita Truda (Defence of Labour) Meets Canadian Labour Congress

The meeting was arranged by the Coordinator of Canada-Cuba Labour Solidarity Network Heidi Trampus and Chairman of the International Council for Friendship and Solidarity with Soviet People Michael Lucas.

The representative of Zashchita Truda presented Anna Nitoslawska with general information about the status of trade union movement in Russia and answered the Canadian representative’s questions about MORP of Russia Zashchita Truda’ work.

In Russia, officially exists several trade union organizations, the largest being Federation of Independent Unions of Russia (FNPR). However, according to the resolutions of International Organization of Labour, FNPR cannot have the trade union status because this organization comprises of employees, employers and employers’ representatives. In addition, as experience has demonstrated, FNPR practically represents interests first of all of the owners of enterprises, and the interests of the workers are the last on their list of priorities. FNPR has significant material and financial resources, most of which it inherited from its predecessor – All-Union Central Soviet of Professional Unions (VCSPS). FNPR practically is a true branch of government apparatus of the Russian Federation and not a representative and defender of interests of employees.

Other than FNRP in Russia there are several unions of other type, such as MORP Zashchita Truda (Defence of Labour), trade union association of Russia Sotzprof, Federal Trade Union of Aviation Dispatchers, Russian trade union of Dockers and some others.

The main difference between Zashchita Truda and similar unions from FNPR is that the former does not permit employers and their representatives to be union members. MORP Zashchita Truda consists of about 18,000 people. It was Zashchita Truda who was the main organizer of all-Russian struggle of the workers against government adopting new reactionary Labour Codex. MORP Zashchita Truda stands on class position in its struggle against capitalist system, using economic contradictions between employees and employers.

Anna Nitoslawska asked in detail about persecutions and repressions on the part of employers against activists and members of Zashchita Truda. The Russian representative told her about such facts as the cruel murder of the leader of Astrahan branch of Zashchita Truda Oleg Maksakov, about beating up by hired mobsters of the Chairman of Zashchita Truda at Vorgashorskaya mine Konstantin Pimenov in the city of Vorkuta, and about illegal dismissal of the Chairman of Zashchita Truda union committee Vasily Chursin in the city of Belgorod. Zashchita Truda representative Nikiforov pointed out Russian office of public prosecutor’ and other Russian judiciary bodies’ indifferent reaction, ranging from passivity to practically encouragement employers to such terrorist activities by the bourgeois Russian government.

Today trade union movement in Russia is at a relatively low level. This can be explained by the fact that for a long time an average Soviet person had a reasonably comfortable petty bourgeois standard of living and relatively stable guarantied social securities. As a result, workers’ sense of class vigilance has become dull and the trade union struggle in all groups of population has weakened. Oppressed labourers completely entrusted their fate into the government’s hands. After the demise of the Soviet Union the state began to take away social rights and benefits it used to guarantee. Living conditions and working conditions of hired labourers began to deteriorate rapidly.

To protect interests of the workers "free" unions started rising spontaneously in Russian enterprises. The government used FNPR to disorganize the process of the workers self-organizing themselves from the ground up. FNPR tried to direct workers’ dissatisfaction into the current of continuous appeals and requests to the government and employers.

Having information from FNPR, Anna Nitoslawska inquired about participation of Zashchita Truda in tripartite negotiations, which usually includes representatives of the employer, the government and the union. Firstly, FNPR being practically a governmental body, is doing everything in its power not to let the representatives from unions, created from the ground up, to participate independently in such negotiations. Secondly, the work of tripartite commission is useless because even formally, such commission is mostly dominated by the representatives of employers, and practically, there are no direct representatives from employees.

Especially important for the CLC representative Anna Nitoslawska was the question of women in Russian trade union movement. In Russia, in the trade unions women have equal rights with men. Moreover, in a number of union organizations women are the most active and non-compromising members. Also, trade unions grow in education and medicine where traditionally numbers of women involved in these professions are high.

Anna Nitoslawska told Vladimir Nikiforov about the focus of CLC’s work as the largest organization among Canadian trade unions, encompassing 30% of all workers employed in Canadian enterprises. Enterprises located in Canada, which belong to American and Japanese companies have unions, which do not belong to CLC. CLC pays a lot of attention to women and foreign workers. Since Canada has a free trade agreement with Mexico and the USA and has strong economic relations with the countries of Latin America and South America, CLC has strong working relationship with the unions of these countries and considers this direction a priority in its international relations. For now, relations with trade union movements in Eastern Europe and Russia are of secondary importance. We can expect improvement and strengthening of the relationship between trade unions of Russia and CLC only with increase of the trade union movement and its activities in Russia.

Both sides agreed upon establishing formal relationship between CLC and MORP of Russia Zashchita Truda.