PUTINomics: Unpaid Russian Workers Unite in Protest Against Putin

Here's Vlad and Dmitry roughing it. They Feel Your Pain

In the far east, the teachers went on strike. In central Russia, it was the employees of a metallurgical plant. In St. Petersburg, autoworkers laid down their tools. And at a remote construction site in Siberia, laborers painted their complaints in gigantic white letters on the roofs of their dormitories.

“Dear Putin, V.V.,” the message said. “Four months without pay.”

Putin in Moscow last week. Workers across Russia are 
starting to protest against unpaid wages and go on strike, 
in the first nationwide backlash against Putin's economic 
policies. 
Credit Alexander Nemenov/Agence France-Presse

After months of frustration with an economy sagging under the weight of international sanctions and falling energy prices, workers across Russia are starting to protest unpaid wages and go on strike, in the first nationwide backlash against President Vladimir V. Putin’s economic policies.

The protests have been wildcat actions for the most part, as organized labor never emerged as a strong political or economic force in modern Russia. Under the Soviets, labor unions had been essentially incorporated into management.

Workers at Kharkov Aviation Factory Protest Over 
8 Months’ Unpaid Wages

Russian companies tend to avoid laying off workers in a downturn to limit severance payments — or to evade the wrath of officials trying to minimize unemployment in their districts. So with the Russian economy expected to contract this year and next, many workers are going unpaid or being sent away from their factories for a few days at a time of unwanted “vacations.”

A member of a Russian trade union protested outside the 
Ministry of Trade in Moscow in March in support of 
automobile workers at a Ford assembly plant who were on 
strike. Credit Ivan Sekretarev/Associated Press

Unpaid wages, or wage arrears, an old scourge in Russia, rose on April 1 to 2.9 billion rubles, or about $56 million, according to the Russian statistical service. That is a 15 percent increase over a year earlier, but experts say that still does not capture the scope of the diminished pay of workers involuntarily idled during the slowdown.

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