Petr Bizukov NPG 1993/94. 30 April 1994

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NPG 1993/94 - report by Petr Bizukov, 30 April 1994

A number of developments took place in 1993, with the result that the NPG is now in a different position to that at the beginning of the period. At one level it would appear that the NPG has lost ground politically, experiencing a number of set backs, particularly in terms of its political involvement in the elections, as well as a continued distance between the leadership and the grass roots membership. However, Petr in his review of the position of NPG today thought it had not lost ground, that is had bee a difficult period but that the union remains a presence in the Kuzbass coal field.

The activity of the last sixteen months can be distinguished according to the following periods:

January-February 1993: The NPG prepared for the strike, holding a vote on the strike in February. The question on the ballot was whether to strike or not.

March 1993; The strike began and ended in the first week of March. NPG began negotiations with the ministry about regulating the process of allocating and distributing subsidies. This was disrupted when Yeltsin announced that he planned to introduce a special regime of government, restrict the activities of parliament and hold a referendum on his presidency.

April 1993: NPG did little else than prepare for the referendum.

May 1993: At the end of May there was a meeting of Russia's NPG at Leninskuzneski, at which both delegates and a number of others (including observers from mine enterprises) attended. Fifty delegates attended the meeting: the regional leaders from Vorkuta, Moscow, Rostov, Sakhalin, Donetsk (?); regional city and local leaders from the Kuzbass. The main question at this meeting was a consideration of the relations between the ruling organs of the NPG and the grassroots. The problem was that the local NPG organisations were not passing on the dues to higher sections of the union. During the debate it became clear that the local leaderships did not want to pay the dues required by the higher levels of the union. This was a very noisy and argumentative, without any decision being reached on this matter. During 1993 NPG went through a number of transformations which resulted in the

Summer 1993: The summer was quiet, although the workers at some pits were sent on forced vacation. The NPG did not make any attempt to defend these workers.

September 1993: This month was also very quiet.

October 1993: The coal basin was very quiet up to the putsch. At this time the NPG became active again on the political question. Petr suggested that the NPG produce a series of information and political leaflets; in fact Petr has been writing such leaflets for NPG for the whole of 1993 and continued to do so during the strike.

November 1993: The activity of the NPG went in three different directions:

1. Political struggle: The focus of the NPG after October was on the elections scheduled for December. Sharipov went to Moscow when the election lists were being drawn up by the different political groups, expecting to have a position on the Russia's Choice list. However, he returned to Kemerovo very angry because he and other regional coal leaders were excluded from the list. The reason given was that there were too many aspirants in Moscow, with national reputations, thus not allowing any positions for regional political leaders. Following this the Russian Movement for Democratic Reform gave Sharipov sixth position on their electoral list, Sergeev 25th position and Utkin 30th place on the list. During the elections the NPG did not take on any particular activity, since Sharipov hoped that everything would be done in Moscow. In the even neither he nor the other NPG leaders anticipated that the RDDR might fail to meet the 5% barrier, so when the RDDR failed to qualify for seats in the election Sharipov and others were very disappointed. One of the problems was that very little work was done in the Kuzbass to secure the vote. Lubadev, the RDDR representative in the Kuzbass only secured the 45/46th position on the electoral list and in his anger refused to work for the election of Sharipov. Nor was there any marked evidence that the miners voted to support Sharipov. In fact, Zhironovsky's list won every coal city in the Kuzbass except for Mezhdurinsk which was won by Russia's Choice. Further the NPG did not participate in the election for the oblast duma.

2. The financial question: The NPG leadership tried to deal with the question of the local groups refusing to pay a proportion of the dues to the higher levels of the union. Initially the union planned a congress for December 1993 to settle this issue, to regulate the financial relationships between the local groups and the higher levels in favour of the higher leadership levels, to give power to the central organs of the union so that they could punish local leaders who did not pass on the required portion of the dues. Because of the election results the congress was postponed. In Petr's view even if they organised a congress they would not be successful in settling this issue.

In December the possibility of expanding and altering the basis of the Council of Representatives of the NPG was considered. For some time there has been resentment within the Kuzbass at what is seen as an inequality in voting weights between the regions: Moscow with 8,000 miners and the Kuzbass with 200,000 miners each have one vote on the council. Because of the the Kuzbass region is now trying to organise a Kizlovsk region of NPG, with its own vote on the council.

Organisation: A new development which may affect the future direction of the NPG is that workers in the iron ore sector have approached the NPG to join the union. In May 1993 the miners from Norilsk petitioned the NPG to join the union. There are 120,000 employees at this enterprise, 50,000 of whom are classified as miners. A representative of the miners applied to join the NPG, principally because of problems that the miners have been having with their administration. According to Petr the metal workers in the enterprise are also keen to join the NPG. They have all been looking for an independent union to join and consider the NPG to be the most appropriate.

3. Strikes and Subsidy Payments: The NPG pursued a third course of action during this period. This usually involved the union heading up wildcat strikes after they had begun. Generally such strikes have been locally-based and focussed with relatively few participants.

The more interesting development occurred around the hunger strikes in pursuit of wage payments. In Vorkuta during November 1993 and into December miners from a number of mines were involved in a hunger strike. The strike was organised by the regional NPG and the city workers' committee and a number of the regional leaders participated in this strike. The Vorkuta leaders proposed to the Council of Representatives that an all-Russia hunger strike be organised, stating that the Vorkuta miners had little chance of success unless the Kuzbass joined. They said that they were likely to fail even if the whole of the Pechora basin went on hunger strike. They also pointed out that it was winter and that the effects of a cross-filed strike would be felt very quickly and disrupt the election. An expansion of the strike was planned for the 4 December but before that date the Kuzbass received the subsidy payments and the Kuzbass Regional leaders called off the proposed strike. Sharipov said to Petr that at the December meeting when the called off the strike that the Vorkuta leaders shouted at him and his supporters: `You goats [a person who is a fool], you have betrayed us'. They also said that within two months the Kuzbass miners would be in exactly the same situation and would start organising hunger strikes. This has happened in February as anticipated by the Vorkuta leaders.

Before the subsidies were paid in December the NPG and the FNPR produced a joint statement on the problems faced by the miners as a result of the non-payment of the subsidies. Petr said that this was because the miners were extremely angry about what was happening and that both unions were acting to focus this anger. Previously the NPG leaders had demanded that the government present a case against the FNPR because of their support for Rutskoi and Kusbalatov.

1994:

The political activity of the NPG has stopped in 1994. The NPG has not been very active in the campaigns for subsidies, nor has it been able to resolve its organisational problems.

February 1994: Petr, on behalf of the NPG, has been organising cooperation with the city administration, examining the social consequences of pit closure. Petr proposed that the oblast administration finance an employment and retraining agency for miners in anticipation of pit closures. Peter's view is that it is necessary that miners have information about training and job opportunities.

Petr's Role

Petr tries to organise a group within the NPG, promoting information and analysis within the union. He has carried out a number of surveys for the NPG focussing on the problem of pit closures. He has recommended that the union look at the technical aspects of collective agreements, considering both how to negotiate collective agreements and what should be considered in such agreements.

Membership and Strikes

According the Petr, the NPG membership is relatively stable and while they have a minority of members in the coal industry they are listened to by the political authorities.

The last set of strikes showed that the union has little influence among the mine workers. Equally, according to Petr, the FNPR also has little influence among the miners. He cited the fact that in the March 1993 strike (organised by NPG) and the 6 September 1993 strike (organised by FNPR) about the same number of miners were involved from the same 40 mines (out of a total of 300 mine enterprises). For NPG this was a `good' outcome since they are the smaller of the two unions.