By Renfrey Clarke
MOSCOW — While the Western media hail Boris Yeltsin as a democrat following the defeat of the old guard's coup attempt, many citizens of the Russian federation may have cause to doubt this as an attack on the trade union movement develops.
Yeltsin set in place legal machinery to prevent political activity in workplaces in a July 24 presidential decree, "On halting the activity of political parties and mass social movements in the state organs, institutions and organisations of the Russian federation". The decree is disguised as an attack on the much-resented Communist Party workplace committees, but it goes well beyond this to ban explicitly political activity in any enterprise, not just those owned by the Russian government.
The most important, and menacing, aspect of the new legislation is its reference to mass social movements. It will now be illegal, for example, for any Russian enterprise to allocate a room in which a workplace women's committee can meet.
And what is a trade union if not a mass social movement? At a blow, and without any discussion in parliament, the decree strips away the long-accepted right of union activists to conduct union business on enterprise premises during working hours.
The decree states that the activity of trade unions in state enterprises and organisations will now be conducted on the basis of agreement between the administration and the labour collective. But what if the administration withholds agreement or decides that established procedures are no longer appropriate?
In most countries, such legislation would cause an outcry, and possibly strikes, but in the Russian federation protests have been limited to articles in Pravda querying the decree's legality. This is because of disgust with the evolution of the Communist Party's role in management in Soviet enterprises.
If anything, party officials have had more authority than qualified managers in administration, wreaking havoc with decision-making processes. The Gorbachev leadership sought to end this duplication of authority, but made limited progress, particularly in the provinces.
Within enterprises, party committees long ago abandoned their intended role of defending the rights and interests of the workers and became a ladder for promotion, as well as a vehicle for official propaganda and for mobilising workers in production campaigns.
While many workers support the Yeltsin decree for the moment, their view could well change when it becomes clear that the new law is so sweeping that it probably bans even casual lunchtime gatherings of political party members to discuss politics and party business.