1 May 2016: Russian labour activist Alexei Etmanov leads a demonstration of autoworkers through St Petersburg. Source: MPRA / Facebook.On 10 January, St Petersburg City Court issued a ruling to dissolve the Interregional Trade Union (MPRA), known for its high-profile strikes at a Ford plant. This is the first time Russia’s 2012 law on non-governmental organisations acting as "foreign agents" has been applied to a workers' organisation. Unions were previously untouched by it.
An independent union
While not the largest Russian trade union (its official membership numbers approximately 4,000), MPRA is perhaps the most renowned. It emerged in the midst of a high-profile series of strikes at the Ford plant in Vsevolozhsk outside of St Petersburg, the most well-known of which took place in winter 2007. Bringing production to a halt and blocking the entrance to the factory, the Ford workers won the majority of their demands from the plant's administration. Wages grew by 11%, and yearly pay raises were indexed to one percent above the rate of inflation. For several years afterward, the Vsevolozhsk factory's contract, which determined working conditions and benefits, was considered a model in union circles.
The leader of the strikers, welder Alexei Etmanov, became famous overnight and, in 2011, was elected to the Leningrad Region Legislative Assembly, where he showed his worth in the opposition. In 2014, his antiwar position on Ukraine cost him the support of the center-left party A Just Russia and his mandate. In 2016, Etmanov ran on the liberal Yabloko ballot line and lost.
