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20M Unpaid Workers to Hit the Streets

By Jagdish Parikh, Hindustani Times, 24 March 1997

MOSCOW (HT) -- Russia's new government faces its first sharp test this week when up to 20-million disgruntled workers will hit the streets to demand immediate payment of a huge wage arrears backlog and key changes to the country's political course.

The one-day labour action, set for March 27, will be Russia's first full-scale general strike in 80 years. Organizers say they expect between 15 and 20-million workers in 230 cities to take part in street demonstrations, rallies and picketing of state buildings.

Fearful that the protests could turn into Albania-style insurrection in some parts of Russia's economically-blighted hinterland, the government has called up legions of riot police and ordered local authorities to take emergency measures to defuse the situation.

The strike was called by the 50-million member Federation of Independent Trade Unions (FNPR) and enjoys backing from virtually all Russian workers' groups and most political parties. President Boris Yeltsin has called the protest "largely justified," and even the Orthodox Church has extended "moral support".

Trade union leaders claim the planned strike was one reason Mr. Yeltsin sacked his old government early this month and replaced it with a team of young, energetic liberals.

"The pressures are growing very intense across the country, and the government is finally responding to the crisis," says Gennady Khodokov, an FNPR spokesman. "We don't care about cabinet shuffles, but we are awaiting action on our long-standing grievances."

As many as one-in-three Russian workers have gone without salaries for at least 3 months, due to government tight monetary policies and the virtual collapse of normal economic relations in many regions of the country. The total unpaid wage bill now stands at a whopping 53-trillion roubles (over $9-billion), with an additional 17-trillion roubles (about $3-billion) owed to the nation's pensioners.

About half of all Russian factories lost money in 1996, and the profitability of another third was considered dubious.

This winter has seen an unprecedented number of wildcat stoppages by chronically unpaid public sector employees. Some of these have turned confrontational -- unusual for Russia's traditionally placid and long-suffering workforce -- or taken the form of long and gruelling hunger strikes.

"Spontaneous actions among workers all over Russia are on the rise, and there is a serious danger things could get out of hand," says Mr. Khodokov. "Increasingly, workers are raising political demands, calling for resignation of the country's leaders."

The government has warned that the strike might spin out of control, and has mobilized thousands of Interior Ministry troops to contain any unscripted manifestations of popular rage.

"If the March 27 protest action deteriorates into mass unrest or pogroms, we will mobilize all our reserves," said General Anatoly Shkirko, commander of riot forces.

Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin has urged local leaders across the country to "immediately get involved personally in negotiations with the unions and businesses to try and come up with concrete measures to ease social tension."

Several top state officials, including two new vice premiers in charge of economic policy, Anatoly Chubais and Boris Nemtsov, have been dispatched to far-flung regions with orders to calm the situation.

The government has promised to pay all wage arrears by July, but Mr. Chernomyrdin's office said Friday that he is working on an emergency plan to help the worst-hit workers before the end of March.

"We have heard such promises many times in the past," says Mr. Khodokov. "The goal seems to be to head-off our protests, after which the promises are forgotten. The only thing that will make us cancel the strike is full and immediate payment of what is owed."

Russian leaders, perhaps mindful of the country's revolutionary history, often display an exaggerated fear of labour unrest. In the final analysis, nobody in Moscow really knows how desperate the situation may be in some of Russia's hardest-hit regions, or when and where the breaking point for millions of hungry workers might arrive.

"In this country there is the state and there is the people, with virtually no institutions standing between them to mediate," says independent political analyst Nikolai Zyubov. "In the eyes of the leaders, the people are a seething, unpredictable mass to be controlled by all means. But also to be deeply feared."

Russia's trade union movement is strong on paper, but is deeply compromised by its continuing history of collaboration with the state. Despite strong indications that this week's strike enjoys massive popular support, its effectiveness could be undermined by the FNPR leadership's timidity and overriding priority on maintaining social control.

"We want the March 27 protest to be successful, but we are trying to contain extremist efforts to give it a political character," says Mr. Khodokov. "Threatening social peace and stability is not our purpose."