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FNPR Newsletter. February 6, 2024

06.02.2024

February 6, 2024

Dear colleagues,

The beginning of 2024 in the Russian Federation turned out to be rich in the events of domestic and foreign policy life. We will continue, as we did last year, to keep you updated on the Russian information agenda and to offer our views on what’s going on.

It should be noted that current economic indicators demonstrate more and more clearly a change in the trends typical for the outbreak of a full-scale economic war launched by the so-called collective West against our country. GDP growth in Russia in 2023 came close to 4%, which is supported not only by domestic assessments, but also by publications in foreign sources that can be trusted to some extent.

The unemployment rate in Russia based on the ILO methodology remains low at just 2.9%, while the number of vacancies declared by employers is much higher than the number of job seekers. Russian authorities, trade unions and entrepreneurs actively look for ways to reduce such a noticeable imbalance in the labour market.

According to trade unions, such situation was predictable and, in many ways, became possible due to the discrepancy between the real economy’s need for qualified personnel and the liberal way of thinking that prevailed in Russian economic life in recent decades.

The distortion in public consciousness, consolidated through liberal-oriented media, was caused by the fact that the leading role was given to financial industry and service professions catering to the needs of that sector. The ideas of inevitable, rapid and all-encompassing digitalisation that would entail the replacement of traditional jobs in industry, medicine, transport and other important sectors with robotic machines, were introduced.

These ideas were the result of ideological misconceptions imposed from the outside. Their inconsistency became apparent as soon as rapid expansion of domestic production of various goods was required in the country subjected to more than ten thousand sanctions.

Liberal market approaches have proved equally unsuitable both in the military-industrial complex and in civilian production, including the agricultural sector. The need for skilled workers and engineers in Russia turned out to be so great that in a relatively short time wage growth turned out to be markedly higher than the growth rate of labour productivity. Filling vacancies at the expense of migrant workers wasn’t possible due to the low qualifications of such workers. Reduction of the existing skills shortage in Russia, which at the end of 2023 was estimated by experts at 4.8 million people, will remain a state objective for the period until 2030, during which it is projected at 2 to 4 million people.

All these misconceptions, typical of the mid-1990s, have now been refocused on artificial intelligence and continued to captivate the participants in the Davos Forum 2024 who, contrary to common sense, still turn a blind eye to the most important challenges for the global economy: it is an astronomically high US public debt which is increasingly undermining confidence in the dollar as the leading reserve currency; these are the sanctions, unnatural for rational economic behaviour, imposed against countries with the world's largest reserves of resources and economic potential (Russia, China); it is the largest post-WWII economic slowdown in leading European countries; it is the virtual destruction of transport logistics through the Suez Canal. Finally, it is the sabre-rattling by NATO countries trying to convince Europeans in the imminence of war with Russia.

In January, it became obvious that the Russian economy had withstood, strengthened and was ready to increase its power, despite continued attempts to cripple it by inventing new "infernal" sanctions.

The trade unions of Russia soberly assess the current situation and, despite being critical of the Government and certain ministries, despite their dissatisfaction with the monetary and financial policies, continue to actively promote economic development and increasing the volume of production and services based on the coincidence of interests of the state and trade unions at the current historical stage.

This coincidence is reflected in the results of opinion polls regarding the level of confidence in the President of the Russia and approval of the actions of the executive branch as a whole. Thus, according to the data published by the Public Opinion Foundation, at the end of January 2024, a positive assessment of Vladimir Putin's work as President was given by 78% of respondents. According to the mid-January poll by the All-Russian Centre for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM), 80.3% of respondents trusted Vladimir Putin. Other credible sociological research centres have shown similar results.

These assessments undoubtedly have an impact on the ongoing election campaign, as a result of which, during popular vote on March 15-17, 2024, Russian voters will cast their ballots for the worthiest candidate. The election results will be announced on March 28, though Russian trade unions have no doubt that the incumbent President Vladimir Putin will be elected for another term.

This conviction stems not only from the results of the country's economic development in the face of the tough opposition from the West, but also from the course of the special military operation led by the President of Russia as Supreme Commander.

In our December letter, we noted that the attempts by the Ukrainian nationalist regime to launch a broad offensive during the summer and autumn of 2023 which, as conceived by its foreign sponsors, was to lead to Russia's defeat "on the battlefield", were unsuccessful. This fact has now been recognized by both the US and NATO. At the same time, the leadership of Ukraine keeps on begging for new shipments of arms and munitions and taking out loans, which future generations of ordinary citizens will have to be paying off for decades. The futility of an armed confrontation with Russia pushes the Kiev regime to commit horrific war crimes that have no statute of limitations.

Thus, on the eve of the New Year celebration on December 30, 2023, Ukrainian military fired cluster munitions rockets at residential houses in the centre of Russian city of Belgorod, where 25 civilians, including 4 children, were killed and 109 people were injured.

On January 21, 2024, the Ukrainian military fired artillery at the market square in Donetsk. 28 civilians doing their New Year's shopping were killed. None of these or other attacks by Ukrainian nationalists on Russian urban areas are justified by military necessity. They are aimed at brutal intimidation of the civilian population and are clearly terrorist in nature.

Another such crime was committed on January 24, 2024. On that day, a Russian transport plane carrying 65 Ukrainian POWs for mutual exchange was shot down in Russian airspace about 50 kilometers from the border of Ukraine with two US-made Patriot surface-to-air missiles killing six members of the Russian crew, three accompanying military personnel and all 65 captive citizens of Ukraine. The Ukrainian side was alerted about the incoming flight, the list of those killed in the plane crash was published, its authenticity confirmed by the Ukrainian regime.

To date, no explanation has been found for the motives of such action. The downing of the plane caused a wide resonance in Russian society and abroad. Its consequences are likely to change the position of the Russian side on reaching further agreements with Ukraine. Obviously, in this case it is not only the breach of agreements with Russia on the exchange of POWs, but also the inexplicable destruction of their own citizens. Russian law enforcement agencies started an investigation to establish essential details of the incident and identify the perpetrators. Russia called for an international inquiry into the crime, but not a single country responded.

As for the trade union activity within the country, the draft General Agreement between the Government, Trade Unions and Employers for the period 2024-2026 and the draft Unified Recommendations on the establishment of remuneration systems for state and municipal employees at the federal, regional and local levels for 2024 have been negotiated and agreed upon.

This has become a major event in the field of social partnership, as it sets parameters for its other participants - sectoral and territorial trade unions, employers' organisations and local authorities - to achieve higher standards for wages, workplace safety, etc.

The FNPR plans to hold its ordinary congress on April 3-5, 2024. Large-scale work is to be done to develop policy guidelines for all levels of the trade union system for the next five-year period. For the first time, reporting and election conferences will be held after the Congress (in total, the FNPR includes 38 sectoral and 85 territorial trade union organisations). Such order of events will make it possible to streamline the process of setting and achieving the trade union goals.

To clarify the action plan, in early February the FNPR held an All-Russian conference of local union leaders attended by more than 800 delegates representing over 600 primary organisations from all regions and industries.The conference focused on important issues in four thematic clusters: fair economy, organisational strengthening, finance and trade union participation in the elections.

We will keep you informed about the most important events in the life of Russian trade unions and be ready to give you relevant comprehensive explanations.