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Uni Commerce and DAG in
Moscow: Russian commerce trade union prepares organising drive in multinationals The Russian Uni-affiliated commerce trade union will launch an organising drive in the multinational companies, which are massively entering the Moscow and St Petersburg markets. A conference in Moscow on 8 - 9 June discussed how the campaign could be structures. There was also much discussion about what the union must be able to offer to its members, to attract the private sector workers. Until now, most of the previous state-owned or co-operative commerce enterprises in Russia have been privatised internally, by management and workers. The new enterprises, which have emerged, are mainly kiosks and small retail, outlets. When some of the leading multinationals such as Ikea and Metro are now entering the country on a large scale, the whole commerce scene can be expected to change. The Russian commerce trade union now has some 600,000 members. Normally, they are collectively affiliated to the union, as part of the whole workforce of an enterprise. The union must now look at its membership structures and focus more on individual affiliation. This calls for new approaches in organising. The Uni Commerce organising project, supported by German affiliate DAG and the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation, will initially aim at organising the workers in the more than ten Metro Cash & Carry wholesale hypermarkets, which are expected to be constructed in Moscow in the near future. A similar organising project is already on its way in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. The Metro organising project in the Russian Federation will be started early this autumn, when organisers will be trained and the project structure set up. This will be a joint effort of Uni Commerce, DAG, the Russian commerce trade union and its Moscow region. In connection with the conference in Moscow, Jan Furstenborg of Uni Commerce and Holger Grape of DAG discussed also other co-operation initiatives with union president Yuri Bobkov and the president of the Moscow commerce trade union Tatiana Krylova. |
