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Trade unions of Russia from 1905 to 2025: lasting achievements and bold vision for the future
This year, the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR) celebrates two important dates: the 120th anniversary of the trade union movement in Russia and the 35th anniversary of the FNPR itself.
The trade union movement is deeply rooted in the history of our country. In the Russian Empire, the rise of the labour movement began in the last decades of the 19th century. But it was only in 1905 that the First Russian Revolution won the right to legally establish political parties and trade unions; and the latter immediately began to form. From the very beginning, social democratic activists associated with various political factions – both the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks – participated in trade union work.
After the 1917 Revolution, the consolidation of power in the hands of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) led to the purge of the Mensheviks and other non-communist figures from the trade union leadership. The Communist Party's tight political control over trade unions continued throughout the most of the Soviet period, that is, from the early 1920s to the late 1980s.
One should note that even in that era, the trade unions united under the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions engaged in the very work for which trade unions exist – they sought to improve working conditions and workers’ well-being.
When the USSR was attacked by Nazi Germany and its allies during the World War II, trade unions played a significant role in organising the defence, evacuating, and keeping enterprises running; these efforts made an important contribution to the heroic and victorious struggle of the Soviet armed forces and the entire Soviet people against Nazism.
In modern Russia, trade union activists remember their predecessors with gratitude and respect. The Soviet trade unions' heritage is an integral part of our historical experience.
The reform of the trade union movement began in the late 1980s during the so-called perestroika period. In March 1990, the trade unions of Russia held their Congress, proclaimed independence from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union still ruling at the time, and established the new trade union centre – the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia. For the Russian trade union movement, that was the beginning of the modern period.
For most of the period from 1993 to 2024, Mikhail Shmakov was the Chairman of the FNPR. In October 2024, the 13th extraordinary Congress of the FNPR elected Sergei Chernogaev, the former head of the Russian Trade Union of Railwaymen and Railway Construction Workers' Union of Russia, as the new FNPR Chairman. The same Congress elected Mikhail Shmakov the FNPR President, in which position he continues to perform a number of important representative functions.
After disintegration of the USSR and Russia's transition to a market economy in the 1990s, the FNPR and its affiliates – industrial unions and regional trade union associations – faced the challenge of protecting workers’ rights and interests in completely new economic and political conditions while simultaneously modernizing their own structure. The situation was aggravated by a protracted economic crisis that lasted almost until the beginning of the 21st century, when neoliberal ideas were in vogue among Russian politicians and government officials of the time.
Overall, the FNPR has managed to successfully get through those difficult years. Radical labour market deregulation, widely discussed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, was never implemented largely due to the FNPR’s stalwart resistance. The new Labour Code adopted in 2001 was developed on a tripartite basis with a considerable social partners’ input. This Labour Code maintains a relatively high level of employment guarantees and state regulation; it has also paid significant attention to the system of social partnership clearly defining the role of trade unions as workers’ representatives.
The FNPR is duly proud of the social partnership system built in Russia. In terms of its structure, this system, as the FNPR Chairman Sergei Chernogaev noted in his speech at the 113th session of the International Labor Conference in June 2025, is "one of the most effective systems for coordinating the socio-economic interests of workers, employers and the state. This model encompasses all levels of government and administration."
Within the framework of the social partnership system, the enterprise-level trade union organisations sign collective agreements with their respective management; industrial unions and regional trade union associations sign industry and regional agreements with the respective employers' associations and regional governments; and the all-Russian trade union associations sign a General Tripartite Agreement with the Russian government and all-Russian employers' associations. Tripartite commissions for regulating social and labour relations work on a permanent basis at both the federal and regional levels.
As of 2024, there were 112,400 enterprise-level collective agreements, 85 regional tripartite agreements, 57 industry agreements signed at the federal level, and 1,092 industry agreements signed at the regional level. The enterprise-level collective agreements and industry agreements signed at the federal level cover 96.4% of trade union members.
Currently, the FNPR unites a total of 18.8 million members. The Congress, which is held at least every five years, is the highest governing body of the FNPR. The Congress elects the General Council and the Chairperson, whereas the General Council elects the Executive Committee.
The FNPR strives for constructive engagement with the state and employers; it prefers to resolve disputes in a spirit of social partnership. At the same time, the FNPR and its affiliates steadfastly protect the freedom of trade unions to manage their internal affairs and to advocate workers’ socioeconomic rights and interests without avoiding sharp disagreements with the federal and regional authorities.
Here are some of the FNPR priorities.
For many years, the FNPR has been campaigning for a considerable increase of the federal minimum wage. This long-term campaign has been relatively successful. In 2020, the Constitution of the Russian Federation was amended. Since that time, it stipulates that the federal minimum wage shall not be lower than the subsistence level (Article 75.5). In recent years, the government tried to live up to this commitment regularly raising the federal minimum wage. From January 1, 2025, the federal minimum wage grew by 16.6% reaching 22,440 rubles per month (approx. USD 225).
Nonetheless, trade unions have always claimed that the federal minimum wage is systematically undervalued because of the official approach to the subsistence level calculation; this challenge persists until now. Since 2021, the subsistence level is annually calculated as 44.2% of the previous-year's median per capita income. Before that, subsistence level depended on the minimum consumer basket which provided only for the most basic needs.
Since 2011, the FNPR has been advocating for linking minimum wage to the “minimum consumer budget” of a working person. The minimum consumer budget, as proposed by the FNPR, shall ensure decent life for workers. The FNPR expert calculations show that as of early 2024 the minimum consumer budget per person should have been 49,950 rubles (approx. USD 500). Thus, despite repeated increases in the federal minimum wage over recent years, it still falls far short of the minimum consumer budget. The trade union struggle for a decent minimum wage continues.
As for strengthening of the social dialogue mechanisms, the FNPR seeks the adoption of a law on mandatory participation of employers in employers' associations. If such a law is adopted, the engagement of employers in collective agreements at various levels will also become mandatory. Hopefully, such a law will be passed in the foreseeable future.
Another debate currently unfolding in the Russian society concerns platform employment. Contrary to the position of some government agencies, the FNPR insists that the Labour Code should enshrine fundamental rights and guarantees for all platform workers.
The FNPR has always actively participated in the international trade union movement. During the first half of the 2020s, the FNPR international activity was restructured while maintaining its continuity.
Until 2022, the FNPR was a member of the largest international trade union federation – the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). For the global trade union movement, the creation of the ITUC in 2006 was an important step forward. Beyond any doubt, the ITUC has contributed to strengthening trade union representation on the global stage, helping to institutionalise trade union participation in the G20 and in a number of other important international forums.
Since the mid-2010s, member organisations from the different parts of the world had repeatedly criticised the undemocratic and non-transparent decision-making processes within the ITUC. The FNPR participated in consultations with the ITUC governing bodies and its largest affiliates aiming to have those criticisms taken into account and reform the Confederation. But, unfortunately, the necessary changes were never realised.
The FNPR's relations with the ITUC have sharply deteriorated after the start of the Special Military Operation in February 2022. The ITUC Secretariat has proved to be unable to resist pressure from a number of the affiliates that have taken a strong anti-Russian position. Under the circumstances, the FNPR deemed it necessary to suspend its membership in the ITUC in April 2022. Nonetheless, all the attempts to isolate the FNPR have failed abysmally.
The FNPR is a member of the General Confederation of Trade Unions (GCTU), international trade union association of the CIS countries. The FNPR is playing an active role in the BRICS Trade Union Forum which, since its inception in 2012, has emerged as one of the most important cooperation platforms for the workers’ organisations of the World Majority countries. The FNPR continues to take part in the meetings of Labour 20, one of the G20 engagement groups. Bilateral relations with a number of national trade union centres in different parts of the world have also developed and strengthened in recent years.
The participation in the International Labour Organisation (ILO) remains a key priority for the FNPR: it has consistently voiced its concern over recent moves to politicise the ILO activity, to substitute an imposed geopolitical agenda for global promotion of decent work, in violation of the Organisation's mandate.
Workers of the world want the ILO to be an authoritative and impartial standard-setting body. As long as the ILO respects its own constitutional mandate, the FNPR pledges to stand side by side with it and boldly oppose any attempts to undermine or dismantle this unique tripartite agency.