ABSTRACT
Many of their principles nonetheless influenced the formation of the independent labor movement in 1989, with miners across the country taking the lead. In some regions, for about a year, all government and Party authorities had to secure the approval of the local labor unions if they wanted to make any important economic decisions. In a country where Party decrees regulated all aspects of labor and social life, real estate developers had never seen anything like that. Although advocating legal methods to advance workers' interests, the Federation of Independent Labor Unions of Russia plays the same role in labor affairs as the Liberal Democratic Party does in politics. In fact, the organization prevents workers from creating a single effective center of independent labor activity. Western European labor unions think that the reforms are over and that there is a kind of status quo in the Russian labor movement.
