Socialist Action /July 2000
New Russian Labor Code Allows Employers
to Gut Workers' Rights
BY ALEKSANDR YELAGIN
MOSCOW-The fight against the Russian government's
draft labor code is assuming crucial importance today for revolutionary
Marxists. This is not a conflict in an individual factory or industry [as
many labor struggles have been in recent years in the former Soviet Union].
It involves defense of the general class interests of the proletariat.
The workers can only take up this struggle as
an organized political force. The Young Revolutionary Marxists [a socialist
group based mainly in Ukraine] believe that whatever form it takes, this
struggle must become a school of class solidarity and political consciousness.
In the Feb. 28 issue of a well-known Russian "businessmen's"
magazine, Ekspert, an article on the proposed labor code appeared by the
former minister of labor and social policy and the present vice chair of
the parliamentary budget committee, O. Dmitrievna.
The article was titled "The Ruinous Labor
Code," and its basic theme was the following: "The draft labor
code deliberately puts an unbearable burden of social benefits for workers
on employers."
Dmitrievna asserts that "despite the sharp
decline in the productivity of labor over the last 10 years, the draft
labor code retains the full gamut of social benefits and workers' rights
from the old Soviet labor code of the 1970s, as well as the additional guarantees
for workers that were included in the labor code in the early 1990s."
Ms. Dmitrievna does not say what these "additional
guarantees" were. In fact, the government's draft labor code represents
the opposite of what she says. There is no question of its maintaining the
guarantees from the old labor code. To the contrary, it severely restricts
the workers' rights. One area in which it does this is in the rights of
employers to hire and fire. In particular, it replaces collective contracts
with contracts with individual workers for specific periods.
According to the new labor code, employers can
set work rules without the agreement of the unions, as well as the rules
for bonuses and other incentives. They alone determine shifts and transfers
from one shift to another, the order of vacations, compensation for vacation
time worked, cuts in wages, changes in wage scales, work norms, and many
other things.
Work-hour limits abolished
A key question in the new labor code is the length
of the workweek. Today, it is established at 40 hours. Some countries, such
as France and Italy, have begun the tradition to a 35-hour week. But the
Russian government's draft labor code would remove all limits on the length
of the workweek.
As Ms. Dmitrievna writes with obvious sympathy,
"In any system in which economic incentives operate, some people want
to work more hours so that they can get more money. However, the possibility
that the draft labor code offers for workers to work longer is meeting with
furious opposition from the trade unions."
Unfortunately, "furious opposition" is
something we can only dream of. So far, there have been only some faint
protests. It should be pointed out that Ms. Dmitrievna is playing an obvious
game here. The old labor code left the way open for workers to work longer
hours. But these longer hours were considered overtime. They were regulated
by law and compensated accordingly.
The new labor code would leave workers defenseless
against their employers, who could arbitrarily lengthen the workweek. On
the one hand, workers would no longer be protected by law, and on the other
they would be under constant threat of losing their jobs and joining the
great army of the unemployed. That is bourgeois justice.
Commenting on the draft labor code, which she calls
a trade-union code, Dmitrievna writes, "In my opinion the trade-union
code does not safeguard the interests of both sides equally, but tips the
balance not even in the direction of the workers but toward the trade unions.
There are virtually no provisions safeguarding the interests of the employers.
Economically unjustified social benefits and guarantees for the trade unions
could lead to bankrupting the companies, the loss of jobs, wages, and status
for the trade unions."
No explanations are necessary here. The bourgeoisie
does not want to pay. Dmitrievna echoes this unwillingness. Her article
indicates that there will soon be an attempt to get the new labor code through
the parliament. It is essential that working-class activists mobilize a
campaign against it under the slogan, "Stop the government's draft."
Unions organize protests
Already on May 17, there was an all-Russian protest
against the government's plans organized by the trade-union organizations
Zashchita Truda [Defense of Labor] and Sotsprof. There were mass meetings,
marches, pickets, assemblies, and strikes in more than half of the Russian
regions. Overall, about 300,000 people took part in these actions.
In Kursk and Vladivostok, there were mass meetings
in the face of bans by the local governments. In one way or another, virtually
all the left parties in Russia took part in these protests.
Nonetheless, we cannot say that these actions seriously
frightened the rulers. If anyone was frightened, it was the functionaries
of the FNPR [the successor of the old state federation of unions], who saw
these actions as a threat to their monopoly of "leading the working
masses."
It proved impossible to organize more massive protests
first of all because the great majority of workers do not see the proposed
labor code as an issue directly threatening them. It is no secret that in
most enterprises that are really working, no labor code of any sort has
been in effect for a long time. This is especially true of small and middle-sized
enterprises. trade, and services.
In Moscow alone, hundreds of thousands of workers
(newcomers, as a rule) are working not only without labor books but even
without contracts, simply on the basis of oral agreements. And you can add
to this the vast unemployment that exists, the thousands of enterprises
that are barely subsisting, and the thousands of workers who are ready to
work even in prison camp conditions, if they only get paid something.
In these conditions, the bosses consider themselves
virtual philanthropists, offering people a chance to make something. So
they think they have the right to dictate practically any conditions.
For example, in the largest Moscow meat-packing
plant, Mikoms, the eight-hour day was abolished long ago. Workers there
have been not working as much as the law says but as much as the bosses
need them, often without even any days off. What is more, they are grateful
to get even that. There is a long line of workers outside the plant gates
ready to take their jobs.
Unfortunately, the new labor code is an issue today
only where it has been possible to build a strong independent trade unions.
But there are very few such organizations in Russia. So, in Moscow on May
17, among the approximately 500 people at the rally on Auto Plant Square,
there were only individual plant workers. Most of those present were the
usual participants in opposition demonstrations, predominately retirees.
But despite this, the rally was rather interesting.
Because it was organized by unions, the speakers were quite different from
those that you usually see at such affairs. There were no official party
speakers. Even the insistent Anpilov [the best known left-Stalinist leader]
did not get the floor, leading his supporters to raise a commotion at the
end.
But there were a lot of workers among the speakers,
real trade-union leaders. And they did not talk just about the draft labor
code. Repeatedly the idea was raised that the basic aim of the workers'
movement should be the abolition of the rule of capital.
Some speakers pointed to the rise of the revolutionary
movement in other countries, including Western Europe and the United States.
They talked about the need for solidarity among all the workers of the world
and even about world revolution. This is hardly the sort of thing you hear
at the rallies of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation or the Russian
Communist Union.
To draw a few conclusions from the past actions:
It may not be possible to stop the new labor code. After the adoption of
this code, trade-union work would become difficult if not pointless. Conflicts
in the enterprises would take the form of direct confrontations. Working-class
activists would have to forget about the law. It would be possible achieve
something only through the determined action of the entire work force.
The tasks of revolutionary Marxists in this increasingly
complicated situation will remain the same-organizing political agitation,
building the revolutionary workers party.
Socialist Action /July 2000 |