ABSTRACT
Russia has undergone a historic transformation since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and employment relations are central to understanding the outcomes of this change. The Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia entered the transition with a union density of nearly 99 per cent, but with a history of subordination to management and the political authorities. The Russian case shows that the ability of actors to exercise strategic choice varies greatly according to context. Russian unions were strongly constrained in their response to reform – ‘over-determined’ is the word that comes to mind in relation to their apparently pusillanimous conduct. Russia’s neo-liberal reform programme launched after Boris Yeltsin came to power in 1991 was a political and economic project intended ‘to dissolve the past by the fastest means possible’. Trade union membership is known to fall during periods of economic contraction – and Russia endured nearly a decade of precipitous decline.
