The path to stagnation

From the editorial office: A developing financial and economic crisis makes us realize more and more new problems. The shocking figures of the remaining without work in Europe and the United States, forecasts of dismissal for the near future, the refusal of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia to publish these statistics on dismissal in Russia turn into an increasingly relevant question: who defends labor today? Is it possible to say that in the European world, including in Russia, there is a tandem of power and business, while the third force, representing the interests of workers-trade unions-disappeared from the socio-political and economic scene? Does this situation have its profitable aspects for the Russian economy? Are powerful unions of an obstacle in solving the problem of economic growth?

RSA talked about this with the editor -in -chief of the "Russian reporter" Vitaly Libin.

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RG: Do modern trade unions protect working people in Russia?

Vitaliy Leibin: During the crisis, the most of all, to society, including trade unions, does not get solidarity. The deficiency of solidarity leads to attempts to escape one by one.

In the pre -crisis period, a low -contesting, but well -felt bursts of trade union movement took place. In some areas of the private sector, salaries grew very significantly. This is the following explanation. Ford trade unions tried to achieve salaries, as in Brazil, if not in Europe. However, today, in the midst of the crisis, it is clear that the bloated salaries and the overstated demands of the employees led to the same thing that the bubble in the stock market led to the general non -competitiveness of the country.

This does not mean that the workers are to blame for the crisis. It must be realized that in a situation of economic growth there was a shortage of labor, as a result, many salaries were disproportionate. Although they, of course, are on average different from the Western ones, where they have long been bloated. But the Western countries made production to China, where cheap labor. Russia did not do this. Therefore, we needed to build a more rational system, especially since the whole category of workers, including top managers and other specialists, was overestimated from the point of view of all reasonable criteria. During the period of economic growth, such behavior of people, in principle, does not bother anyone. During the crisis, it becomes threatening.

RG: You are talking about the scope of the trade union movement. But, in the general opinion, the influence of the social lobby in the issue of salaries was minimal, at least in Russia. Was we had a trade union of top managers who fought for the minimum level of their salaries? Was this not determined exclusively by private market relations?

VL: Of course, the surge in the trade union movement observed in Russia did not reach the level of influence of the trade union lobby in other countries. This surge was connected, firstly, with the import of production to Russia. An example is automobile production, which introduced some Western social standards. Secondly, the development of the trade union movement is explained by the growth of the new economy, which allowed to go beyond the facet of survival and start fighting for specific salaries and working conditions, which in itself is not bad.

Any one -sided positions, including the position of protection of the employee, are harmful without taking into account other forces. During the crisis, what previously seemed rational is perceived as complete madness. For example, when employees change every six months work with an increase in salaries (and this happened in Russia until September this year). The summer largest strikes on Ford are perceived today as something that is beyond good and evil. It would be nice to think about this not only to entrepreneurs.

RJ: To whom can be appealed to as a representative of labor? Who should think "on behalf of the workers"? Do you have the feeling that the fragmentation of the trade union movement does not allow you to make any concessions in the situation where they are necessary?

VL.: It can be very much. It seems to me that the first thing to think about is the lack of solidarity in the trade union movement.

A social lobby is necessary with a reasonable program. Such a program can be a denunciation of not joint behavior of the class of entrepreneurship: amazing attempts to take monstrous profits from some banks at a time when other banks have nothing, or an attempt to finally wrap huge trading margins before all the money ends, or an attempt to optimize the wage fund without thinking about the efficiency of production.

But in order to formulate a reasonable program, it is necessary to realize the irrationality of the approaches of the last period, to understand that in the long run there is no social paradise like European. Orientation to European salaries is the path to stagnation, to universal disability and a drop in production. Europe paid for its social paradise by lost production. The United States, in turn, paid for European well -being "Marshall's plan." Both America and Europe will still face the crisis of the social state.

The main task of the new social lobby is to understand this reality and not demand the impossible.

RG: As you know, the social state destroys globalization. There are two ways out of this situation: to put an end to the social state or end globalization, that is, to protect their own capital, as Malaysia did, to force their own capital to work with their own population in accordance with internal life standards. Is this option realistic?

VL: Russia is involved in that part of the globalization that is based on the import of cheap illegal labor. And then there is a general deception and misunderstanding. I was recently asked: is there so much costs of labor for, for example, developers, what is critical for them to use illegal labor? Businesses are more than others, which are originally arranged as speculative, with huge superprofits, which are tied to administrative capital and over -by -explosion, which have little correlating with a contribution to the general well -being.

As for globalization. Perhaps, as soon as workers from Tajikistan become legalized, they will begin to receive a decent salary as soon as the labor standard grows up for them, we will have jobs for their own.

Often the solution of the issue is not in the closure of borders in this case, but in reasonable regulation. Still, today the setting of the problem is not that the worker receives as much as the worker receives in the European construction company. Today in the first place the question of the termination of the use of slave labor. As soon as this practice is put an end, many negative effects of globalization will disappear.

Boris Mezhuev talked