The strike at the Ford factory in Vsevolozhsk, located right outside St.
Petersburg, ended on Dec. 14. It was the longest and most intense standoff
in post-Soviet times. The strike began on Nov. 20 and continued for three
weeks. According to union activists, the plant’s conveyors came to a full
stop. Then management threw together one shift mainly composed of office
workers and, toward the end of the strike, a second shift to keep the
assembly line running. But the quality control department continued its
strike, which means that cars produced in early December might not meet all
of the technical standards.

During the strike, only a small number of cars came off the assembly line,
and the company can expect to be counting its losses for a long time to
come. The striking workers, for their part, are now morally and physically
exhausted after fighting a long battle against management. The labor union’s
strike fund was unprepared for such a protracted battle, OMON police forces
harassed the picketers and the strike’s organizers were threatened with
prosecution.

In the end, a general meeting of striking Ford workers voted in a secret
ballot to halt the protest, and the company’s administration promised to
raise their wages. Both sides signed an agreement prohibiting punitive
actions against the strike’s participants.

The union and the company promise to settle all matters of dispute by Feb.
1. Union leader Alexei Etmanov said the Ford administration was already
prepared to index salaries to keep pace with inflation and to provide
additional pay for extra work and for length of service in the company.
Etmanov characterized all of this as a victory, saying: "This strike turned
out to be the most protracted in the past 10 years. I think the
administration should agree to concessions. They would hardly want to see a
new strike in the spring."

The union achieved much less than expected, however. In addition to the
concessions obtained, workers had demanded a 30 percent wage increase,
higher pensions and changes to the work schedule and the number of work
hours per day.

It would appear that the confrontation ended in a draw. The management
failed to break the union, and the striking workers walked away with only
modest results, especially considering the tremendous effort and stress they
went through to get what they wanted.

The conflict at the Ford factory took on significance far beyond the
organization itself and even beyond the auto manufacturing industry in
Russia. The media from all over the country covered the story extensively.
This was the country’s first open-ended strike since the new Labor Code came
into force several years ago. It was also the first strike that the
authorities did not squash and in which its participants obtained a
guarantee that they would not be subjected to reprisals. The strike once
again demonstrated that the laws work against labor unions, but it also
showed that strong workers’ organizations can find ways to get around many
of those restrictions.

Finally, the Ford conflict forced many people to acknowledge that factory
workers are shamefully underpaid in Russia — not only in comparison to
Western Europe, but also with respect to analogous car plants in Latin
American countries.

Ultimately, the fundamental issues in this strike concern not only Ford
workers and managers, but all of society. Although the Ford factory is
working again and things seem to be back to normal, we must all draw these
important conclusions from this strike and understand that serious labor
problems still remain in the country. The first stone has been thrown into
the water, and the waves will continue rippling outward for a very long
time.