Worker Strikes Will Only Boost Kremlin’s Popularity, Say Analysts

Map of Russia and Russian Flag adapted from images at state.gov

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber – March 31, 2015) Withheld salaries, unforeseen firings and pay cuts have amplified discontent in an array of Russia’s economic sectors, leading to a handful of strikes political analysts said Monday were more likely to bolster workers’ support for the Kremlin than weaken it. A scattering of Russian teachers, builders and factory workers […]

» Read more

Labour conflicts in Russia on the rise, cuts top of agenda – union official

Map of Russia and Russian Flag adapted from images at state.gov

(Interfax – Volgograd, March 17, 2015) The number of social labour conflicts in the Russian Federation has increased in the past eight months, deputy chairman of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia Yevgeniy Makarov said on Tuesday [17 March]. “The previous week was one of the most difficult ones. Conflicts were recorded in every federal district. There were […]

» Read more

Ukraine separatists strip Donetsk elite of power and property

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Graham Stack in Donetsk – March 12, 2015) A line of fresh flower-heaped graves marks the northern edge of Donetsk’s Scheglovskoe cemetery, where 33 coal miners killed in a pit blast on March 4 lie. Only 50 metres away stands a pithead of the massive Zasyadko mine, where the men met their deaths. The […]

» Read more

Russia To Test Migrant Workers On Country’s History

Migrant Workers file photo

(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Farangis Najibullah and Umid Bobomatov – June 13, 2014) So you want to work in Russia? You may be a skilled bricklayer — but do you know when Ivan the Terrible reined in the boyars? Or when the Polish-Lithuanian forces were expelled from Muscovy? When Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg? No? Well you might want to start […]

» Read more

Housing and High Wages Will Stop Russian ‘Brain Drain’ – Russian Official

Artist's Conception of Nanotechnology Components

MOSCOW, April 2 (RIA Novosti) – New housing incentives and high wages will help prevent young Russian scientists from leaving the country, a Russian official said Wednesday during a meeting of young scientists in Siberia. “I think that we should create better conditions so that our young scientists are motivated to build their career here in the country. And by […]

» Read more

Now I’m a union man

Kremlin and St. Basil's file photo

(opendemocracy.net – Grigory Tumanov – January 13, 2014) Grigory Tumanov is a Moscow based journalist and blogger. He is a staff correspondent for Kommersant daily, one of Russia’s most respected publications. In both Soviet and more recent times, Russia’s trade unions have tended to be an arm of the regime, but Grigory Tumanov argues that a growing independent movement is […]

» Read more

RIA Novosti: 1 Million Foreigners Could Be Working Illegally in Moscow – Official

Aerial View of Moscow From Beyond Stadium, file photo

MOSCOW, January 9 (RIA Novosti) ­ About a million foreigners could be working illegally in the Russian capital, a top Moscow migration official suggested Thursday. Olga Kirillova, head of the Federal Migration Service’s Moscow branch, said in televised remarks to the state-run channel Moskva 24 that just over 415,000 foreigners work legally in the city. She said that the overall […]

» Read more

Interfax: Most migrants come to Russia in visa-free travel regime, many don’t speak Russian

Migrant Workers file photo

MOSCOW. Nov 20 (Interfax) – A third of migrant workers do not speak Russian, Federal Migration Service head Konstantin Romodanovsky said. “We are witnessing a surge in the arrivals of migrants from CIS member countries. As of now, 11.1 million foreigners are staying in Russia, and almost three-quarters of them enjoy the visa-free travel regime,” he told a roundtable in […]

» Read more

My Two Days Working Undercover at Moscow’s Sadovod Market

Map of Western CIS/FSU and European Environs

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Eradzh Nidoev – November 7, 2013) [Photos here http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/my-2-days-working-undercover-at-moscows-sadovod-market/489045.html] It’s 6 a.m. and still dark outside. I am standing inside the sprawling Sadovod market on the 14th kilometer of the Moscow Ring Road in southeast Moscow. A sweeper is working one of the deserted rows of shops, trying to put things in order after yesterday’s […]

» Read more

Kudrin says Russian economy cannot do without migrants

Alexei Kudrin file photo

ST. PETERSBURG. Oct 22 (Interfax) – The Russian economy will have difficulties functioning without migrant workers, former Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said. “Russia will become a country with workforce deficit in the coming years…We currently cannot do without migrant workers. But migration should be regulated, it should be legal,” Kudrin told reporters in St. Petersburg on Tuesday during the […]

» Read more

Putin: productivity gains must accelerate to shift from raw materials

Oil Well file photo

(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 2, 2013) The current challenge for the Russian economy is the need to accelerate labor productivity gains, since the current slow pace means that the economic orientation on raw materials extraction will continue, President Vladimir Putin said in Moscow on Wednesday at the Russia Calling investment forum organized by VTB Capital. “For Russia, the main, crucial […]

» Read more

How former Soviet countrymen resettle in Russia

Map of European Portion of Former Soviet Union

(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Lyudmila Nazdracheva, special to RBTH – September 26, 2013) This year, thanks to a program that facilitates the return of nationals to Russia, around 15,000 people have moved back to the country. The plans for the program estimated the influx of returning émigrés to be in the hundreds of thousands per year, and […]

» Read more

Moscow’s Migrant Problem ­ And Lack of Community

Kremlin and St. Basil's

(RIA Novosti – Natalia Antonova, Acting Editor-in-Chief of The Moscow News. She also works as a playwright, ­ her work featured at the Lyubimovka Festival in Moscow and Gogolfest in Kiev, Ukraine – August 13, 2013) The war on migrants in Moscow is being stepped up ahead of the September 8 mayoral election ­ with a tent camp set up […]

» Read more

Most Russians Unhappy About Migrant Worker Influx – State Survey

Migrant Workers file photo

(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, Aug. 1, 2013) ­ Most Russians have negative views regarding the influx of labor migrants, millions of whom come from former Soviet republics in Central Asia to seek a better living in Russia, according to the results of a state survey published Thursday. About two-thirds (65 percent) of respondents to the poll, conducted last month, said […]

» Read more

More than half of Russians would like to work in govt sector – poll

Kremlin and Moscow Environs Aerial View

(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 20, 2013) Public service looks attractive to 55% of Russians, although 22% believe public officials have to agree to compromises with their conscience, a nationwide public opinion poll conducted by www.superjob.ru has shown. ‘Stable salary and powers,’ ‘maximum salary and minimum efforts – public service is a dream for any idler’, ‘you can take large bribes […]

» Read more

Over quarter of Russians convinced nothing can be achieved with strikes – poll

Kremlin and St. Basil's

(Interfax – MOSCOW, June 27, 2013) The faith of Russian citizens in the efficiency of going on strike has decreased – the number of those considering strikes as the only way to resolve issues has gone down in the past years, while the number of skeptics grew considerably, a poll showed. In 1989 17% respondents considered strikes to be the […]

» Read more

Russian officials worried influx of migrants becomes unmanageable

Migrant Workers file photo

(Interfax – June 6, 2013) The influx of migrants in Russia is becoming alarming, head of the Federal Migration Service Konstantin Romodanovskiy has said, as quoted by Interfax news agency on 6 June. “For the last four years, we have recorded a significant increase in the number of immigrants to Russia. It was especially high in 2012 and 2013. Certainly, […]

» Read more

Why We Should All Work Like Putin

Oil Worker file photo

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 31, 2013 – Michael Bohm) Michael Bohm is opinion page editor of The Moscow Times and author of “The Russian Specific: An Analysis of the Russian Work Ethic” (A. Golod, 2007). Any discussion about the Russian work ethic inevitably ends up focusing on the Soviet Union, which did more than any other period in […]

» Read more

Russian analysts: immigrants, guest workers fertile ground for radical Islamism

Russian Mosque File Photo

(Interfax / Religion – Moscow, May 15, 2013) The head of a Russian policy think tank has argued that immigrants and guest workers who have come to Russia from Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union are potentially a fertile environment for radical Islamist ideas and called for tighter restrictions on immigration and guest labor. “The migrants are hostile toward […]

» Read more

Laboring in Sochi No Slice of Heaven

File Photo of Sochi Olympics Banner Near Highway in Warm Weather with Vehicle and Cyclicsts Nearby

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Irina Filatova – April 30, 2013) SOCHI ­ The problems on Ruslan Zokhidov’s mind are not typical for a young man of his age: he is the least likely person to be found nattily dressed at a trendy night club or entering a university lugging a pile of books. Instead, Zokhidov, 19, lugs building materials […]

» Read more

Unions, Bloggers, Lonely Girls Rally in Russia on Labor Day

Map of Russia

(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, May 1, 2013) ­ Hundreds of thousands of people rallied across Russia on Wednesday to mark Labor Day with events ranging from Soviet-style state-endorsed marches to campaigns for promotion of European techno and single ladies’ rights. Moscow saw seven rallies, the biggest of them being a march of labor unions in Moscow, co-organized by the ruling […]

» Read more
1 2