A-Infos (en) Russia, Avtonom: Right to Fight: "Trends of Order and Chaos" Episode 143 (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

In the last podcast prepared by Antijob , we talked about what 
traditions society really needs, and clearly showed that the ability of 
people to unite and wage a collective struggle for their rights and 
interests largely determines how society will develop.  ---- But it 
would also be interesting to find out under what conditions such skill 
is increased and in what conditions, on the contrary, it is lost, how 
the political regime and formal law influence this. For example, the 
right to strike.
Right to strike
Last week on Sunday the strike of German machinists ended. They demanded 
a reduction in the working week from 38 hours to 35 and an increase in 
wages. During the strike, a significant proportion of passenger 
transport was not operating, including long-distance trains and regional 
rail transport. In Berlin and Hamburg, short-distance trains (S-Bahn), 
which actually serve as urban transport, operated on an emergency 
schedule. As a result, the management of Deutsche Bahn, the main railway 
operator in Germany, compromised and agreed to negotiate on the demands 
of the railway workers' union.

And this week a warning strike began by security workers at German 
airports. Their union is pushing for a 14 percent wage increase. Due to 
the strike, a third of scheduled flights were canceled at the largest 
airport in Frankfurt am Main, and two thirds at Dusseldorf Airport. 
Almost all flights at Cologne-Bonn airport had to be cancelled. The 
strike lasted a day, until the evening of February 2.

What these two strikes have in common is that in Russia they would be 
illegal. Article 413 of the Labor Code establishes the possibility of 
limiting the right to strike by federal law. And there are a lot of 
these restrictions. Thus, Article 26 of the Federal Law "On Railway 
Transport in the Russian Federation" establishes a ban on the use of a 
strike as a way to resolve collective labor disputes by railway workers. 
And a similar prohibition is established in Article 52 of the Air Code 
of the Russian Federation: the use of strikes or other termination of 
work by civil aviation personnel providing air traffic services is not 
allowed.

In 2003, the Federation of Trade Unions of Air Traffic Controllers of 
the Russian Federation (FPAD Russia) and the Tyumen territorial 
organization FPAD sent a complaint to the Constitutional Court to 
declare the above provisions unconstitutional, but the Constitutional 
Court refused to consider it. Considering that Russian Railways is a 
monopolist in the field of railway transportation, and for aviation 
workers the choice of places of work is not so wide, it is not so easy 
for workers in these areas to even vote with their feet. Except that for 
some time now, Russian civil aviation pilots have begun to move en masse 
to the UAE, China, Vietnam and other countries.

However, in the Labor Code of the Russian Federation the procedure for 
organizing a strike is so regulated that it is actually impossible for 
workers in other spheres to carry it out according to the law. Rallies 
and other public actions are now also virtually banned. As a result, the 
most popular method of struggle among hired workers in Russia has become 
filing complaints with various authorities. What traditions are formed 
by the "Putin Pamagi" method of fighting? We think you can guess for 
yourself.

Trade unions independent from workers

By the way, speaking of traditions. There are so-called traditional 
trade unions in Russia. This is FNPR - Federation of Independent Trade 
Unions of Russia. In fact, this structure migrated to modern Russia from 
the USSR. As then, it is completely dependent on the employer and the 
state. As then, it consists of people who are formally accepted into its 
ranks, often even forced to do so. As then, she is engaged in the 
distribution of travel vouchers and the distribution of gifts for the 
holidays, and not in protecting the rights of hired workers. Actually, 
this is not the FNPR, but the FPNR - the Federation of Trade Unions 
Independent of Workers.

 And recently, this organization once again pleased with its initiative 
. The leadership of the FNPR decided to join the hunt of many Russian 
officials and announced a campaign to collect one day's wages for 
February or March from workers who are members of most large Russian 
trade unions "for the needs of the so-called "SVO"." People must 
transfer part of their salaries to the account of the "100 Years of 
Trade Unions in Russia" fund.

"At the General Council of the FNPR on January 17, it was decided to 
hold a patriotic action "Trade Unions of Russia - For Their Own," said 
FNPR Chairman, member of the State Council of the Russian Federation 
Mikhail Shmakov. The organization played with fonts and it turned out 
original and patriotic. " We decided that The money received should be 
used to create greater protection for the civilian population from drone 
strikes, and in general from terrorist attacks. Trade union members are 
also dying at their workplaces. Equipment for electronic countermeasures 
against drones and other means to protect civilians will be purchased."

While the organization is lining its pockets with workers' salaries, the 
civilian population is asking the question - why should it itself 
sponsor its own means of protection, which in fact should be provided by 
the state?

"Trade union members dying at their jobs" should ask themselves the 
question: why are it ordinary workers who are dying at work, and not the 
shiny faces of officials and leaders of patriotic organizations? And why 
does their entire concern for the working people consist in yet another 
extortion of workers' wages?

"The amount of one day's salary will not hit the family budget ," FNPR 
assures people who go to the store for food every day. - "At the same 
time, by transferring one day's earnings, millions of trade union 
members will collect a truly impressive amount, which will protect the 
lives and health of Russians . " Maybe an impressive amount will protect 
the lives and health of Russians with luxury living space abroad, but 
why do Russian workers need this?

Maybe. just stop the war with your neighbors? So that the Russian 
working class does not participate in crimes against the Ukrainian 
people, so that it is not driven like cattle to slaughter as part of 
partial mobilizations, and finally, so that the country's economy can 
develop normally. Enormous money that could have been spent on salaries 
for doctors, teachers, scientists, on the creation of schools, 
hospitals, roads, bridges, on real import substitution, and not on 
endless bullshit about this, is now simply spent on killing people. But 
the fact of the matter is that the FNPR continues the tradition of 
licking the master's boot, and it can only offer the workers 
degradation, lack of rights and death.

Death of collectivism
The tradition of licking this very boot, of course, is rooted in the 
distant autocratic past, but specifically the FNPR is a product of 
another era - the commissar state. By the way, in the labor codes, the 
so-called Labor Codes, of which several were adopted in Soviet Russia 
and the USSR, the right to strike did not appear at all. Only in the 
wake of perestroika in 1989, with the adoption of the law "On the 
procedure for resolving collective labor disputes (conflicts)," was the 
right of workers to strike legally recognized in the USSR.

And in 1940, a truly remarkable document came out from the pens of the 
main "spokesmen for the interests of the working people . " By the 
decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR "On the 
transition to an eight-hour working day, to a seven-day working week and 
on the prohibition of unauthorized departure of workers and employees 
from enterprises and institutions," workers were assigned to 
enterprises. They were forbidden to quit or change jobs. This could only 
be done with the permission of the director, and only in two cases: due 
to illness or disability, or upon enrollment in a higher or secondary 
specialized educational institution. This decree was canceled only in 1957.

However, the story about labor law and labor conflicts in Soviet times 
probably deserves a separate issue. And here I would like to talk not 
about city workers, but about village workers.

On January 31, 1921, the largest peasant uprising against the Bolshevik 
rule began in Western Siberia. It was precisely against the Bolsheviks, 
and not against the soviets as bodies of self-government, because the 
general slogan of this uprising scattered over vast territories was: 
"For soviets without communists." By that time, the Bolsheviks had 
already managed to disperse the councils more than once, to which it was 
not they who were elected, but their socialist opponents - the Socialist 
Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and anarchists.

Well, they committed natural genocide against the peasants, taking from 
them not only the grain that was supposed to be used for flour for 
bread, but also the seeds intended for sowing. They supposedly should 
have redistributed them correctly, but in the end all this stuff rotted 
in the barns. Actually, this was the main reason for the uprising, but 
people saw the solution in having councils elected freely, and not at 
the behest of their superiors.

Then the peasant community, the bearer of the tradition of collectivism, 
from which the Russian labor movement, all Russian revolutions and the 
soviets themselves grew, gave the last serious battle to the state. A 
worker in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century was often 
yesterday's peasant and still retained in many ways the same way of 
thinking that his parents and his parents' parents had. It was precisely 
such a worker, not yet trained by the uncontested ideology, total 
repression and bureaucratic regulation of life, who was capable of 
collective struggle.

But the Bolsheviks crushed this uprising with extreme cruelty, like 
others. The orders of the Soviet command contained demands to shoot on 
the spot without trial everyone captured with weapons in their hands, to 
take and shoot hostages for destroying the railway line and telegraph 
communications, for providing assistance to the rebels, to burn and 
destroy with artillery fire entire villages that supported the rebels or 
offered stubborn resistance.

The backbone of peasant Russia was broken then, and then in the 30s they 
completed the job by driving the peasants into collective farms. The 
communists did the same with workers' Russia, turning trade unions from 
organs of labor struggle into agents of the interests of the state 
bureaucracy. Collectivism, ironically, was destroyed by those who 
supposedly fought for it.

Well, then capitalism very easily fell on the soil of conformism and 
opportunism. The new tradition of "investing only in yourself" is 
closely intertwined with the old tradition of "keeping your head down." 
The right to fight was lost along with the ability to wage this fight.

Bringing both back now seems like an impossible task, but who said it 
would be easy? No one will solve this problem for us.

Well that's all for today! We remind you that in Trends in Order and 
Chaos, members of Autonomous Action and other authors give anarchist 
assessments of current events. Listen to us on  YouTube ,  SoundCloud 
and other platforms, visit our website  avtonom.org , subscribe to our 
e-mail newsletter!

https://avtonom.org/news/pravo-na-borbu-trendy-poryadka-i-haosa-epizod-143
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