Ford Motor`s employees to stage strike

The so-called Italian strike - when workers do not leave their working places even if bosses order them to do so - is scheduled for this week if last Wednesday`s action fails.

Last week, 350 employees of Ford Motor`s Russian plant in Vsevolozhsk outside St. Petersburg went on warning strike demanding a 30% increase in wages and the introduction of the so-called 13th salary at the end of each year as labor productivity and inflation rates have increased.

There has been no official reaction from the plant`s top management, save for the announcement that the strike will have no negative effects on the plant`s deliveries.

The protestors warn executives that if they do not listen to their claims, they will hold a series of strikes.


Ford`s Russian plant became the site of a conflict between the management and the workers in September. The negotiations with the labor union have brought no results, although the management said it hoped to avoid a strike. The labor union insists that the workers` wages be raised by 30% with the so-called 13th salary paid at the end of the year, that staff members performing the same operations be paid the same wages, and that collective management of the social insurance fund`s assets be introduced at the plant. The head of the plant`s labor union Alexei Etimonov said that at present time Ford`s workers receive from 10,000 to 17,000 rubles ($350-$600) a month, and with overtime the pay comes up to 20,000 rubles ($700). This is approximately 5 times less than the labor pay that Ford`s workers get in such countries as Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary.

The labor union unites 1,070 of the plant`s 1,700 staff members and the majority of them are workers. Meanwhile, up to August of this year the labor union, which was created three years ago, was only 112 members strong.

The strike at Ford`s plant in Vsevolozhsk is yet another chapter in the history of world labor unionism, but it is absolutely new in the post-Soviet history. In the times of the Soviet Union labor unions were an official establishment that was invented for keeping workers in harness. Their only task was to collect union fees, buy presents for holidays and anniversaries and distribute vouchers for vacation and medical therapy. There were no industry-specific labor unions, as scientists and workers could be lumped into a single organization. There was no talk of organizing strikes in demand for better conditions, because the propaganda hammered it into everyone`s head that the Soviet Union was the state of the workers and for the workers. And, truly enough, Soviet workers did have it well, with an average worker salary far exceeding that of an educated engineer or academic scientist.


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