Soviet working class

n.
le
r-

WJ e Mh DN

Ris

I RS URE USS URE he

i

WORLD ~

ii

‘‘Making us work more days is
not the way to fulfill the plan,’ said
another. ‘‘Fewer days off just means
we’ ll have less energy and less desire
to work at the plant’’.

Another surprise. The dissenting
workers quickly found spokesmen of
their own, people who were notasso-
ciated with the trade union hierar-
chy. One of these who became some-
thing of a media figure was big Lev
Makarov, 48, a foundry worker at
the plant who, during the ensuing
conflict seems to have played a tough
but thoughtful role.

Some 10 per cent of the plant’s
600 departments rejected the man-
agement timetable outright. There
emerged a consensus for an alternate
timetable with only eight ‘‘Dirty Sat-
urdays’’. Others endorsed
management’s timetable, with 15
working Saturdays, only after fierce
debate. Appeals to authority, habit,
to the exigency of the plan and the
pride of trade suffused the discus-
sion. For example, in the heat of
discussion, one worker who sup-
ported management’s position ap-
parently charged that those who were
calling for fewer working Saturdays
could ‘‘no longer call themselves
Soviet engine-builders’’.

Although what had happened so
far was quite unprecedented, no one
seems to have been alarmed at this
stage. Management, seeing its time-
table overwhelmingly accepted in
section-meetings then brought it,
unchanged, tothe council of the work
collective. This is a new type of
body, composed of representatives
directly elected by all the employees
of the enterprise. However, it has
worked out at the Yaroslavl enter-
prise that the head of management,
Vitaly Doletsky, is also chairman of
the council. The council of the work
collective endorsed management’s
timetable, with 15 Saturdays, and
that is when the trouble broke out.

New form of democracy

After the day shift, on Friday
December 11, alarge group of work-
ers marched to the head office, car-
rying placards in favour of the eight
Saturdays scheme, and demanded a
meeting with Doletsky. He wasn’t
available, nor was the chairman of
the trade union committee, or the
plant’s party secretary. The next day
a much larger crowd of workers
gathered, and their representatives
were able to meet with the director.
Together they decided to call a con-
ference of the work collective to
decide the issue.

This form of democracy is quite
new for Soviet workers. In fact, for
most it is still a largely untried ex-
periment. It’s import is that the entire
workforce of an enterprise not only
elects a council to oversee day-to-
day matters -- its jurisdiction is eve-
rything that goes on or has to do with
the enterprise -- but also, in extraor-
dinary circumstances, workers may
call for a general assembly of the
entire work collective. In the
Yaroslavl case, where the work col-
lective is too huge to meet, a confer-
ence composed of delegates directly
elected by workers in their sections
was arranged to address the time-
table question.

In preparation for the confer-
ence, management finally presented
its best case in an open and public
manner. It published all of the rele-
vant figures about breakdowns, time
losses. supply disruptions, etc., and

madea strong pitch for endorsing the
15 working Saturdays, ineveryone’s
interest, to meet the unavoidable
demands of production. ‘‘Should the
management have argued its case in
this way, right from the beginning,
there might have been no conflict,”’
notes Sotsialistichesskaya Industria.

The proponents of eight Satur-
days, with Lev Makarov prominent
among them, held their meetings at
the plant gates every day, to agitate
for their point of view.

Atthe conference, December 18,
some 700 delegates hotly debated
both sides of the issue for more than
four hours. Interestingly, Lev Maka-
rov was given a place on the presid-
ium, though he had no official posi-
tion or claim to sit there. In the end,
a vote was taken in which 359 dele-
gates supported management’s posi-
tion for 15 working Saturdays, 296
opposed it, and five abstained. In the
course of the meeting a compromise
had been agreed to, in which man-
agement promised a timetable with
no more than eight working Satur-
days in 1989.

Anew militant spirit

After the meeting, Makarov told
a Moscow News reporter: ‘‘No less
than the director we are interested in
the fulfilment of the plan and meeting
our contractual committments. On
this depends our earnings and our
children’s security. We have no
beefs with management in this re-
spect. But what should be done to
achieve this? Why does everything
hinge on working Saturdays? The
managementsays itneeds them inthe
event of breakdowns, but these are
not inevitable. Instead of eliminating
the causes of them, it seems easier to
make the workers work Saturdays’.

The outcome of this dispute, in an
apparently goodwilled accommoda-
tion of management, may seem anti-
climactic to Western readers. But in
the Soviet context what happened
and how it was handled are earth-
shaking news. Although it occurred
in specific circumstances, Over a
particular issue -- “‘Dirty Satur-
days’’ -- the episode contains many
elements that are universal and
which are bound to turn up again and
again in the coming months as the
Soviet economy converts to new
conditions and the democratization
begins to take hold:

First, there is a newly militant
spirit emerging among workers as
they respond to the atmosphere of
perestroika and feel their way down
channels of democratic input that
have opened up for them. Their
expectations are obviously growing

and, among some, there is clear .

impatience with old ways, old slo-
gans and old demands upon them.
They can no longer be taken for
granted.

Second, both management and
the trade unions in Yaroslavl reacted
tothe situation in exactly the old way,
trying to steamroll the timetable
through, expecting all committees to
rubberstamp it ‘‘for the good of the
plan’’. To its credit, management
smartened up as storm clouds gath-
ered, and made a good effort to play
by new, democratic rules. The plant
trade union organization, however,
appears to have been virtually side-
lined. Nothing illustrates this better
than the fact that an official nobody,
but popular workers’ choice, Lev
Makarov, emerged as the one who
argued uncompromisingly from the

workers’ corner.

Atthe latest trade unioncongress,
Mikhail Gorbachev accused Soviet
trade union leaders of frequently
‘‘dancing cheek to cheek with man-
agement’’ in arranging industrial
affairs. Indeed, trade union leaders
in general seem to stress their admin-
istrative functions and appear
strangely uncomprehending of the
new conditions that are developing
under their noses.

Third, the issue was resolved
through a conference of the work
collective and not by any traditional

means. This is tremendously hopeful
because it suggests that direct de-
mocracy can work in Soviet facto-
ries, and that it can overcome prob-
lems that used to simmer and fester.

Finally, the response of the Soviet
media may be the most important
new reality of all. Had it happened
even just a year ago, the Yaroslav]
dispute would have been hushed up,
glossed over, and treated as if it were
a blotch on the face of socialism.
Now, reporters rushed to the scene,
interviewed workers and manage-
ment, and published all the argu-
ments and the events in detail. In the
process not only the workers of
Yaroslavl but the entire country re-
ceived an education.

“‘there

is a
new, militant
spirit emerging
among workers...”’

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 13, 1988 e 9