Commerce
Home Page

Commerce
work in multinational
companies

UNI Commerce project expands to Russia:
Russian commerce union targets multinationals in a systematic organising campaign

The Russian commercial workers' trade union will target some of the leading multinationals in an organising campaign, which was launched last week in Moscow. At a conference in the Russian capital, union representatives from the largest cities in the country discussed the organising approach with UNI Commerce. Yuri Bobkov, the commerce union's president said that this campaign will have a top priority in future activities.

The organising conference at a Moscow training centre brought together some thirty union  representatives from major Russian cities. They face a new kind of a challenge when organising workers in  the new hypermarkets and superstores, that have recently been opened by leading multinationals. The first experiences show that particularly middle management is putting pressure on workers to keep them out of trade unions.

The Russian Federation is an attractive market for many of the world's leading multinational traders. Ikea, Auchan and Metro Cash & Carry are leading the way, but also others are said to be planning an entry in the very near future. The first Metro-Group owned Real hypermarket will open still this year, and Wal-Mart is said to be among the companies, which will soon arrive in Russia. 

Anna Afanasieva is president of the first trade union organisation in Metro Cash & Carry in Russia. A social dialogue has been established between the commerce union and Metro's top management in Russia, at the initiative of UNI Commerce. On the shop floor level it is, however, still difficult for Anna and her trade union colleagues to do trade union work. Lower level managers do not hide their hostility towards the trade union and its representatives. There is much pressure on the workers and this makes organising difficult.

At the Moscow conference, trade union  representatives from the Russian capital as well as from St Petersburg, Nizhniy Novgorod and other leading cities discussed with Jan Furstenborg and Alex Rüdig of UNI Commerce about how a comprehensive organising campaign could be built up. This will draw heavily on experiences from similar UNI Commerce projects in Poland, Croatia and other countries. UNI's Moscow office director Olga Vinogradova will now work together with Yuri Bobkov and the union's Moscow president Tatiana Krylova to set up the operation.