In this fascinating article from inside Russia, “SERGEI” gives us a valuable insight into the mood of Russian workers and, in particular, looks at the popularity of working-class social media influencers.
Look out for part two, which will follow soon. It will deal with another social media content creator and look at the problems of older workers, levels of militancy and the prospects for possible future struggles. [featured photo shows Russian blogger – Vanek]
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Sanctions and the SMO (‘Special Military Operation’) have re-aligned the Russian economy. For the first time in many years, wages have become more expensive as the number of industrial workers has grown.
“The slaves are gone!” say young people from the generation of millennials and they demonstratively refuse vacancies where they have to toil for three kopecks [100 kopecks to one ruble – ed]. Perhaps, workers’ pride and class feeling are returning.
When Russia became integrated on the world market, factories closed because former Soviet industries could not compete with competitors in the West and new Chinese industry. The working class ceased to be “hegemonic,” as officials used to say in Soviet times. Industrial workers became people who had not been paid for months and who simply could not find a better job. They went to the factory out of desperation because they were old, marginals or “losers”.
In the 2000s, it became fashionable to work as a “manager” in an office, a lawyer or do business. This was linked with the rising logistics sector and the emergence of new jobs based on imported technologies, new communications and the IT sector. The concept of a “post-industrial” society, according to which the industrial working class was going to gradually disappear, gained popularity.
Now, no one talks about a post-industrial society. The fragmentation of the world into opposing blocs made it necessary to develop domestic industry. For Russia, this became especially acute in the conditions of war and Western sanctions.
Workers were needed again. The government called upon its own production to replace imports. Bourgeois economists, like the heroes of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “How a Peasant Fed Two Generals”, discovered that bread does not grow on trees, it must be sown and reaped, and value is created by the consumption of labour power, not by the “successful” use of “entrepreneurial abilities”.
Factory work is cutting-edge
Young people are used to expressing themselves through social networks, and recently the format of TikTok blogs, short videos about their lives lasting about a minute, has become especially popular. As a rule, rich bloggers shoot videos about how they spend their day in the best restaurants, do fitness training, travel or aesthetically prepare breakfast. This “lifestyle” format is ostentatious and is designed to demonstrate success and wealth.
And somewhere between business coaches, entrepreneurs and their idle wives, a simple fitter and turner named Vanek has crept in who shapes metal components on a Soviet lathe machine from the 1930s [see featured photo above – taken from the internet- ed].
In his first short , which has collected 1.3 million views, Vanek talks about his salary of 150 thousand rubles. He says that he is not ashamed to work at the factory, but the slackers who sell courses on entrepreneurship to ordinary workers should be ashamed.
The TikToker received a lot of approval in the comments, and in 2 months of its existence, the channel has gained almost 100 thousand subscribers. In his videos, Vanek describes how he is forced to work overtime to get a normal salary, and how his bosses make him clean the workshops and work as a loader, that is, do someone else’s work. Vanek also advises his viewers not to work too hard in fulfilling production targets, otherwise they will make you work that hard all the time. The blogger uses specific slang: he calls himself “The Anvil,” uses “boyish” words, jokes a lot, and his favourite word is “precision” (chetko).
After a few months of blogging, Vanek was fired from the old plant he had been describing because he complained about the management in videos and was forbidden to film. Now he works in a younger team, in a company that assembles CNC (computer numerical control) laser machines. The new management thinks the blogger is good PR for recruiting employees.
Vanek noted this difference in the organization of new and old plants. Soviet plants have a structure close to the army, with strict subordination to the management that disrespects workers. In these workplaces the managers feel like kings and the workers are dust under their feet. Abusive jokes and unethical statements about subordinates are common. I can testify to this.
At new enterprises, a reserve of pensioners and conformists whose only thought is to repay their mortgages has not yet formed. At the same time, the owners compete for workers and are forced to build human relationships with them. Otherwise their business will fail. But this applies to skilled work. In trades and services, at construction sites and everywhere else where low-skilled labour is used, cronyism and the manipulation of employees flourish.
When I worked at Mac [McDonalds – ed] I observed the following picture: one manager went to work part-time at night during his vacation – and was not happy about it; in the morning, when the director came, she said to him: “Why are you working so slowly?”
Another time, I had finished work and went to the manager to inform him of this. The director was standing nearby. After I said that I had finished, the director turned to the manager and said that there was some dirt in one inconspicuous place that I was responsible for. The director mentioned the need to do this work in my presence but to the manager not to me directly, so that the manager had to pass this command on to me.
Subordination
Such pervasive lines of subordination are similar to the army, where the company commander cannot directly tell a soldier about some violation, but tells the platoon commander, who tells the squad commander and so on down to the soldier. This whole system is needed to show the “importance” of the bosses, and make everyone crawl up the career ladder.
When I quit Mac, the manager there tried to hold me back with manipulations: How can you abandon the team?! Don’t you care about the others!?” It is clear from many details that the management looks down on the workers and it is exhausting. During the Russian revolution in 1917, waiters demanded to be addressed with the formal “you” form – “vy” [not the familiar and patronising “ty” – ed]. It seems that there is still something to fight for in this direction.
Old enterprises are gradually renewing their workforce, but have not yet learnt how to communicate with millennials. But they will have to do this. Vanek received an offer from the old plant to return and continue filming his videos, but he refused.
Before the plant, “The Anvil” (Vanek) was a children’s hockey coach. He worked hard and led the team to the regional championship. At the same time, the salary was nothing, 6,000 rubles. The management of the sports centre replaced Vanek with another coach, who did not teach children, but sold them additional services. After that, he had to move to St. Petersburg.
“The Anvil” often repeats in his videos: “I will always be for the working class”. “It is because of the workers that the lights go on in your home” – he answers the haters who are fans of entrepreneurs, “and in my opinion, the economies of countries depend on the working class, and not on sales courses.” Golden words that hit the psychology of the working class!
It is noteworthy that this channel is watched by a lot of people older than Vanek, 40+, 50+, and they express their full approval. It seems that the workers lacked pride in their work and an honest conversation about their lives.
Flight of millennials. What does the new generation want and what is it afraid of?
Employers and HR specialists complain en masse about “lazy and selfish” millennials. “Spoiled” youth do not want to stay for overtime, go on unpaid internships. If the working day is over, they go home, despite the fact that the boss and colleagues are working late. There are cases when millennials leave work during their lunch break and never return.
There are even HR courses on how to work with millennials. It turns out that you can’t be rude to them; you need to talk about their problems, and you need to pay more! But the bourgeoisie doesn’t want this, they try to wriggle out of it, introduce “non-material motivation” measures in line with the slogan “be obedient, you fool, and you’ll get a badge” (the original rhymes in Russian). Such token measures include biscuits and a cooler with water, talk about the importance of work, team spirit, etc.
Some old workers try to ridicule “conformists who whinge” by repeating to them “we suffered and you must suffer.” But the youth don’t accept this, and besides, the bourgeoisie forgets to mention that the millennials complain about all these problems because they have encountered them. They came to work and saw that you can earn money only if you stay overtime, that the work is dominated by army sloppiness and arrogance.
But due to different economic conditions and a broader horizon, formed thanks to the internet, they have a responsible approach to their lives. They care about the mental health of themselves and others, equal relations between the sexes, respect for the individual, humanity. They have received the opportunity not to be weaklings and do not meekly accept backbreaking labour.
Although young people have returned to factories due to rising salaries, escaping the yoke of working life is still a cherished dream for many. Many young workers are looking for new professions. There are a lot of ads everywhere for programming schools, design schools, tattoo artist courses, and so on. Blogger Anna Dark talks about her work experience in the video “Labour Market Disaster! Where Are the Slaves?” and recommends starting your own business. She has worked as a salesperson, in catering and in other areas where most people begin their working lives.
Constant instability
She realized that due to the constant rise in prices, she would never be able to buy an apartment or a car. And her main feeling is a sense of constant instability. The times of the USSR, as Anna believes, were more predictable, you could get on a waiting list for an apartment and get it. There was a procedure for improving your qualifications and career growth, especially if you got an education. Instability is also aggravated by the fact that businesses in trade are constantly closing or updating, for example, retail is being replaced by marketplaces. They hire relatives, connections, or flunkies for paid and respectable positions.
In sales, Anna saw how the employer placed all risks onto the employee. If a product was stolen or broken, its cost was shifted onto the employee. Failure to meet the sales plan led to fines – which is illegal, by the way. Record profits at the end of the year did not affect her salary in any way. I fully confirm all these observations. At Mac, we had a “productivity” indicator: the restaurant’s profit relative to the number of employees involved per hour. And our salary did not depend on this productivity in any way, it only affected the bonus of the manager who organized the sweatshop.
The most outrageous thing about work, for Anna, was the lack of opportunity to sit down. In Russia, it is forbidden everywhere to sit at work, especially in retail jobs and in everything that involves working with clients, even in large warehouses. And it doesn’t matter whether there is work or not.
In the absence of trade unions, Anna sees only an individual way to fight for a better life – to quit. She calls on people to leave dead-end jobs, and to help their relatives, friends and significant others financially until they get settled and find a new job or get a full-fledged profession. Anna herself has taken up tutoring and Social Media Marketing courses.
Under her video, subscribers left comments confirming Anna’s words:
“I’ll say this, my motivation as a 34-year-old man, with previously healthy ambitions, has dropped to 0. I’ve really worked hard in many places, but I never became a chairman. (The head of the section was the same pawn, only the owners and close associates get paid).”
“No matter how much you work, you still won’t be able to buy anything worthwhile. An apartment, a car, a family? The first is 7 million. The second is 3 million. Well, for a family you need at least 1 million a year. The average salary in my region is 50 thousand a month. What’s needed here is not motivation, but a gun .”
“The kids are great, resisting this beastly system. My generation of 50+ is a generation of slaves. They haven’t paid wages for six months – you say let’s all submit a resignation letter. No, you write it and we’ll see what happens. I fully support the millennials.”
In this last comment it is striking that an older worker who tried to fight supports the younger generation.
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Look out for part two which will be published soon
