#FREESENTSOV

#FREESENTSOV (MARYCULA).JPG Nach einem Showprozess folgt 20 Jahre Zwangszeit für dem Filmmacher Oleg Sentsov und zeigt uns den Neostalinismus vom System: Putin. Die FIFA bleibt feige und stumm. Schluss mit der Menschenverachtung – sofortige Freilassung von Oleg Sentsov!

A show trial is followed by twenty years of hard time for Oleg Sentsov and demonstrates the neo-Stalinism of Putin’s system. FIFA remains cowardly and silent. Put an end to the inhumanity: release Oleg Sentsov immediately! Poster by Marycula

Photographed by the Russian Reader at R.A.W. Gelände in Berlin-Friedrichshain, on April 1, 2019

#FREESENTSOV

“A Truly Great Competition”: Yegor Yekimov Jailed in Petersburg for Picketing in Solidarity with Oleg Sentsov

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St. Petersburg Group for Assistance to Detainees
Facebook
July 15, 2018

On Saturday, Yegor Yekimov was detained in the Petersburg 2018 FIFA World Cup Fan Zone for holding a solo picket in solidarity with Oleg Sentsov and handing out leaflets.

The activist spent the night at the 71st Police Precinct.

Today, the Petrograd District Court sentenced him to five days in jail.

Mr. Yekimov has an illness that requires constant maintenance therapy. He must strictly avoid catching any infection whatsoever.

This fact, however, did not stop Judge Irina Grechishko, who sentenced Mr. Yekimov to jail.

Additionally, Mr. Yekimov is a voting member of an election commission, and the court had no right to try him without authorization from a prosecutor.

Mr. Yekimov has been taken to the detention facility on Zakharyevskaya Street in central Petersburg. Attorney Daniil Semyonov will file an appeal of the verdict tomorrow.

Translated by the Russian Reader

#SaveSentsov

45 Days

word-image-49 This map, published by Amnesty International, shows the geography of Oleg Sentsov’s ordeal, from his arrest in occupied Crimea, in May 2014, to his arrival at the Labytnangi Correctional Colony, north of the Arctic Circle, in October 2017. Courtesy of Let My People Go!

#SaveSentsov
#FreeOlegSentsov

Ukrainian film director and political prisoner Oleg Sentsov is in the midst of his forty-fifth day on hunger strike in the maximum security penal colony, north of the Arctic Circle, where the Putin regime sentenced him to twenty years for the thought crime of not approving its illegal occupation of Crimea in 2014.

Sentsov’s only demand is that the Putin regime release the several dozen other Ukrainian political prisoners it has imprisoned.

It should also release Mr. Sentsov, made to suffer for a crime he did not commit. (He was convicted on terrorism charges). It would be a gesture of peace and reconciliation appreciated round the world, especially during the World Cup, which Russia is currently hosting.

But I am not holding my breath. Russia has been misruled for the last twenty years by a clique of KGB officers who morphed into some of the most reckless and impudent gangsters the world has ever seen once the Soviet Union collapsed. Yet this utterly destructive regime gets oodles of aid and comfort from the international far left and far right, as well as corrupt entities like FIFA and the London City, who want to partake in Russia’s embezzled riches.

A wiseguy like Putin knows this and, I am afraid, has calculated that the fallout from Sentsov’s death in prison is an acceptable risk. Releasing Sentsov, on the other hand, would show that Putin is susceptible to pressure from the outside world. Unless I am misreading him, he is loath to do this, at least in an obvious way. // TRR

Raising the Retirement Age in Russia

Russia has the money to build stadiums like Zenit Arena, in Petersburg, the world’s most expensive football stadium, and stage incredibly expensive mega events like the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, but it cannot afford to pay its workers decent pensions without raising the retirement age beyond the current life expectancy for forty percent of Russian men. Photo by the Russian Reader

Alex Gaskarov
Facebook
June 4, 2018

It is quite likely a draft law on raising the pension age will be tabled in the State Duma in the very near future. The authorities probably want to take advantage of the restrictions on large-scale rallies during the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Raising the retirement age is not entirely an economic issue. The Pension Fund has been running a huge deficit because 40% of wages are paid under the table. This is a colossal amount. Even the most incompetent revenue service could easily reduce this figure.

It appears there is an implicit consensus between the regime and a segment of the business world that the latter agrees not to get involved in politics, while the regime agrees not to try very hard at auditing businesses. It is a commonplace that only suckers pay taxes to the current regime. Admittedly, there are grounds for this.

Nevertheless, wage laborers are the clear losers, and it is also obvious why. If the majority of people are so easily gulled during elections, as we saw recently, what reason does the regime have to keep its campaign promises and bother about reducing poverty?

I really hope liberals will also support the campaign against raising the pension age. There are market-based means of fixing the problem, for example, reducing mandatory pension deductions while simultaneously raising the corporate profits tax. When salary deductions come to 43%, while the corporate profits tax is 20%, it makes financial sense to understate salaries even without resorting to illegal gimmicks.

The trade unions have launched the campaign, but everyone is free to join it.

*********

KTR Launches Campaign against Raising the Retirement Age
Confederation of Labor of Russia (KTR)

The Executive Committee of the Confederation of Labor of Russia (KTR) has issued a statement concerning plans by the Russian federal government to raise the retirement age. […] To sign the statement and join the grassroots campaign in your city, write to ktr@ktr.su or call +7 495 737-7250 or +7 903 140-9622.

Statement by the Executive Committee of the Confederation of Labor of Russia (KTR) on Plans by the Russian Federal Government to Raise the Retirement Age

On May 8, 2018, during a plenary session of the State Duma, Dmitry Medvedev spoke of the need to make a decision about raising the retirement age. Currently, various government proposals for implementing a decision are vigorously being discussed in the media.

The Executive Committee of the Confederation of Labor of Russia (KTR) argues that plans to raise the retirement age are not based on the available official statistics and do not meet the objectives set by the Russian president for the government. The KTR does not support solutions of this sort and announces the kickoff of a broadly based grassroots campaigns to oppose their implementation.

According to the Russia Federal Statistics Service (Rosstat), the average life expectancy in sixty-two regions of the Russian Federation is less than 65 years for men, while in three regions it is less than 60 years. If overall demographic trends in Russia remain generally the same, 40% of men and 20% of women will not live till the age of 65. Enacting proposals to raise the retirement age mean a considerable number of Russians will not live to enjoy retirement.

For many years, the Russian government has pursued an economic policy that has produced a deficit of 40–45 % in the Pension Fund. The KTR believes the deficit emerged primarily because a huge number of employees work without the benefit of an employment contract. Their wages are paid off the books, and mandatory pension contributions are not deducted from their wages. The Pension Fund’s managers estimate that regular deductions are made for only 43.5 million people out of a total working-age populace of 77 million people.

Rosstat has estimated that 10 trillion rubles in wages are paid under the table annually. This means that, annually, at the current rate of 22%, the Pension Fund does not receive 2.2 trillion rubles in deductions.

So, the current rate of deductions could be maintained and the Pension Fund would not show a deficit if all employment were legal and on the books. Moreover, average pension payments could be increased.

Illegal employment is grounded in the disenfranchisement of workers due to ineffective procedures for protecting their right to employment contracts and collective bargaining. The KTR argues that positive outcomes could be generated by increasing the liability of employers who pay employees off the books and fail to make tax and pension deductions. Overcoming powerlessness, however, necessarily involves changing the laws and restoring real rights to organize and join a trade union, bargain collectively and strike, and protect trade union organizers from summary dismissal.

The fight against informal employment must be the primary solution to the Pension Fund’s deficit.

If plans to raise the retirement age are enacted, the absence of government-funded retraining programs, automation of production, and the bleeding of low-skilled jobs from the labor market will generate a millions-strong army of elderly people who have no jobs and no pensions.

As an association of independent trade unions, the KTR appeals to all forces in society, political parties, and social movements to oppose the increase of the retirement age and get involved in the grassroots protest campaign.

We propose organizing an open headquarters for running the national campaign to protect the rights of workers to pensions.

June 1, 2018, Moscow

Boris Kravchenko, president, KTR
Igor Kovalchuk, chair, KTR Executive Committee
Sergei Kovalyov, secretary general, KTR; president, Russian Federal Flight Controllers Union
Oleg Shein, vice-president, KTR

Translated by the Russian Reader

Grassroots Recycling as a Threat to Russian National Security and International Football

Football fans! You might want to know that this past Saturday, the monthly neighborhood collections of recyclables, organized by the Razdelnyi Sbor environmental movement, an entirely volunteer-run organization, were cancelled, apparently by the police or higher powers, in four of Petersburg’s districts (Central, Admiralty, Krasnoye Selo, and Kalinin), allegedly, because they were a “security threat” to the ongoing FIFA Confederations Cup.

Ironically, this same grassroots movement, which poses such a (non-)threat to national security in neighborhoods many kilometers away from the brand-new stadium on Krestovsky Island where some of the cup’s matches are being played, including the final—a stadium that was built at the cost of unbelievable cost overruns (i.e., kickbacks) and completion delays, precarious migrant labor (including slave laborers shipped in from North Korea, one of whom was killed in an accident on the site), and the demolition of the old Kirov Stadium, a nationally listed architectural landmark designed by the great constructivist architect Alexander Nikolsky—made a deal with cup organizers and FIFA to collect and process recyclable waste at the stadium after matches.

Meaning that, at the stadium itself, this same grassroots movement was seen not as a threat, but as a cynical means of showing fans that FIFA and the Russian government were all about “international best practices.”

This is a ridiculous, telltale story that someone other than lowly unread me and my crap blog should be reporting.

By the way, under normal circumstances, readers of my Facebook news feed would have got a message from Razdelnyi Sbor about Saturday’s collection points, a message I cut and paste and disseminate faithfully every month, because I want everyone I know to go the one-day collection points in their neighborhood with their recyclables, and because my partner and I go to our neighborhood spot in the Central District every month ourselves.

Last year, I even bought a Razdelnyi Sbor t-shirt, to support the cause and occasionally serve as a living, breathing, walking, talking advertisement for it.

I guess I’ll have to think hard about whether I want to wear the t-shirt again. I don’t understand how you can serve the authorities at their Big Event while letting down the ordinary people who support you in their neighborhoods with their volunteer labor and their recycling month in and month out.

A friend of mine was arguing on Facebook just yesterday that VK, the homegrown Russian social media where Razdelnyi Sbor has its community page, was where it was at, as opposed to snobby Facebook. But in the relevant recent posts on Razdelnyi Sbor’s VK page about the cancelled collections you won’t find word one criticizing the authorities for acting in such a brutal, stupid way towards a completely beneficial grassroots campaign. I would imagine the page’s moderators hastily scrubbed any such complaints, if there were any. I’m sure there were some.

This is the real Russia, about which I almost never read anything in the western media and, sometimes, in the Russian media, either. It’s a country where recycling enthusiasts (just like cycling enthusiasts, for that matter) are imagined as a threat to national security and as “agents of the west,” except in the one instance where they can make the authoritarian state’s Big Event seem more PC to foreign football fans, dishing out big euros for tickets, merchandise, food and drinks, and rooms. TRR

A huge thanks to Comrade Darya A. for the heads-up. Photo courtesy of Razdelnyi Sbor’s website

Read more on this topic:

The Return of Serfdom?

iuf.ru
September 2, 2013
The Cost of the World Cup
FZ-108 primarily threatens hundreds of thousands of Russian workers

A serious discussion has erupted since the contents of the notorious “2018 World Cup Law” (or FZ-108, for short)* were revealed to the general public. The focus of the discussion has been the consequences of removing restrictions on employing migrant laborers and the possibility of their runaway exploitation if the law’s clauses on voluntary contracts (which place them beyond the reach of a number of articles in the Labor Code) are enforced.

However, the people most threatened by FZ-108 are Russian citizens.

When the discussion of FZ-108 was getting underway, many in Russia were disturbed by the fledgling campaign against “illegal migration” recently undertaken by law enforcement and local authorities in several areas of the country, a campaign involving police raids and mass imprisonment of migrants in special camps, where they were forced to live almost on the bare pavement, without electricity and other basic conveniences. Given this background, it was unsurprising and even natural that the public would pay more attention to the clauses in FZ-108 dealing with the employment of foreign nationals and stateless persons. The perception exists that the law has nothing to do with Russian citizens.

But is this really true? The answer is simple: no, it isn’t!

* * * * *

Major sporting events like the World Cup always entail the generation of tens of thousands of jobs in construction, light industry, building maintenance, catering, retailing, transportation and so on. Yes, these jobs appear only for a few years, but wise use of such opportunities can give the economy a stimulus for decades to come. Increasing employment leads to growth in domestic spending and private savings, which, in turn, improve demographics. These are the three pillars of sustainable economic development.

But all that happens only when the new jobs are decent, meaning the wages they pay allow people to spend money, including on major and long-term purchases (e.g., home appliances, furniture and cars), and maybe even take out a home loan, and the terms of employment enable them to feel confident in the future, save money, and start and raise a family.

However, the wording of FZ-108 makes it clear that none of these things are expected to happen in Russia. Instead, the authorities are planning to tackle the job of preparing and staging the 2018 World Cup with slave labor, thus definitely ruling out any positive effects both for workers and the economy as a whole. The only outcome of this championship will be the personal gain of a few.

Why is such a conclusion warranted? The fact is that FZ-108, unlike, say, FZ-310 (which deals with the 2014 Sochi Olympics),** expressly stipulates significant exceptions to labor laws, exceptions that will diminish job quality. They are mainly concentrated in the controversial Article 11 (Chapter 4), “The Characteristics of Work Related to the Staging of the Events.”

First, Article 11 gives employers the right to establish long working hours unilaterally (Section 1).

Second, Article 11 allows employers to define the manner of payment for work at night, on weekends and on public holidays without regard to the stipulations of Articles 154, 113 and 153 of the Labor Code. Moreover, this can be done through collective bargaining, through the inclusion of such clauses in individual employment contracts or, more generally, through the enactment of “local regulations,” that is, yet again, unilaterally (Sections 2 and 3).

Third, overtime pay is abolished. Employers may simply compensate for overtime by “providing additional leisure time,” but the wishes of workers are not taken into account, and Article 152 of the Labor Code is effectively revoked (Section 4).

Finally, Section 5 abolishes such nonsense as the provision of elective annual leaves at times convenient for workers (such guarantees are given in Article 122 of the Labor Code, for example, to women before and after maternity leave). Like the rest of the lives of employees, holidays are governed by the “work plans of relevant organizations for preparing and staging the sporting events.”

However, as Vladimir Yurasov, a partner at the Moscow law firm Knyazev and Partners, rightly noted during an interview on RBK-TV, all these rules are clearly contrary to the Russian Federal Constitution. Article 37 of the Constitution states that everyone has the right to remuneration for work without suffering any form of discrimination, and that employment contracts guarantee workers statutory working hours, weekends and holidays, and paid annual leave, as stipulated by federal law. FZ-108 assumes that if workers are employed in the “preparation and staging” of the World Cup, this may very well serve as grounds for discriminating against them in terms of compensation, working hours and the right to paid leave and time off. In this case, “local regulations” are declared primary, rather than the Labor Code and Constitution.

Of course, these draconian measures do not apply to all workers in Russia, only to “FIFA employees, FIFA subsidiaries, FIFA business partners, confederations, national football associations, the Russian Football Union, the Russia 2018 Organizing Committee and its affiliated organizations, whose work activities are related to the staging of events.” The most interesting phrases in this clause are “FIFA business partners” and “work activities […] related to the staging of events.” Let us consider them in the order they appear.

As Article 2 of the law explains, a “FIFA business partner” is a “legal or natural person that has a contractual relationship with FIFA or its subsidiaries and is involved in events.” The list of such individuals and companies could prove to be quite long, because all commercial partners (including sponsors and licensees), suppliers, agents, broadcasters and so on will be included. Moreover, the provisions of the law apply not only to the “business partners” themselves but also to their subcontractors and subsidiaries.

Because preparations for the World Cup have just kicked off, the list of “FIFA business partners” is still incomplete. At present, for example, we know the names of only three companies that will serve as corporate partners to the 2018 World Cup: Coca-Cola, Hyundai-Kia and Anheuser-Busch InBev. In all, FIFA will have thirty-four such partners by 2018. Of course, all these companies have subsidiaries and subcontractors—personnel and temp agencies, construction and security companies, cleaning and catering companies, firms involved in maintaining equipment and buildings, supplying brand-name goods, producing and placing ads, and so on.

Another way to assess the scope of the problem is to compare the 2018 World Cup with another sporting event that will be hosted by Russia, the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. We already know the names of all its suppliers, partners and licensees. Let’s take a look at the list.

• Worldwide Partners of the Olympic Games: Coca-Cola, AtoS, Dow Chemical, General Electric, McDonald’s, OMEGA, Panasonic, Procter & Gamble, Samsung, Visa

• General Partners of Sochi 2014: Aeroflot, Megafon, Rostelecom, Bosco di Ciliegi, Volkswagen Group Rus, Sberbank of Russia, Russian Railways, Rosneft

• Official Partners of the 2014 Olympic Games: Ingosstrakh, PwC

• Suppliers of Sochi 2014: Avaya, Baltika, EF English First, Kommersant Publishing House, Abrau Durso, Adecco Group, EXECT Business Training, Kelly Services CIS, Detech, Microsoft Russia, GAZ Group, Scania-Rus

In addition, nearly seventy companies have signed licensing agreements with the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee.

It is obvious there will be no fewer companies wishing to link their logos to the World Cup. Only unlike the employees of Olympics partners, employees of FIFA’s business partners will be forced to waive many of their workplace rights.

But perhaps only a small number of workers will be affected by this restriction of rights? Unfortunately, the wording of the law gives no grounds for such a hypothesis. The law mentions employees whose work is related to the preparation and staging of the World Cup. However, the wording is utterly unspecific. How do we differentiate the work a company does in preparation for the World Cup from its other activities? For example, Coca-Cola produces beverages emblazoned with the World Cup logo. Does this constitute work performed as a FIFA business partner or not? Can it be construed as having to do with the preparation and staging of the World Cup? What about cellular network development work done by mobile phone companies? Or the introduction of new direct flights by air carriers? Without going out of our way to abuse common sense, we can construe nearly all commercial activity by FIFA business partners as preparation for the World Cup.

Of particular concern is the more than probable inclusion among the business partners of such companies as Adecco Group, EXECT Business Training and Kelly Services CIS – that is, companies still operating in the legal gray zone of personnel services. Given that Bill No. 451173-5, better known as the law banning contingent labor, which has already suffered serious damage and almost been stripped of its original intent, was returned for a second reading in the State Duma, the de facto support and promotion of these companies by official Russian sporting organizations and state agencies looks like a targeted attack on the quality of employment.

How many Russians will be affected by these measures at the end of the day? If we accept the flawed logic of FZ-108, we can agree with Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko that the concept of the World Cup has been developed and adopted by FIFA in such a way that almost seventy percent of the country’s population will be involved in preparing for it and staging it.

Does this mean, as some journalists have predicted, the return of serfdom? The answer depends largely on the actions of the trade unions.

_____

* The full text (in the original Russian) of the Russian Federal Law “On the Preparation and Staging of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup in the Russian Federation and the Amendment of Certain Russian Federal Legislative Acts” can be found here: http://www.rg.ru/2013/06/11/chempionat-dok.html

** The full text (in the original Russian) of the Russian Federal Law “On the Organization and Staging of the Twenty-Second Olympic Winter Games and Eleventh Winter Paralympic Games of 2014 in Sochi, the Development of Sochi as a Mountain Resort and the Amendment of Certain Russian Federal Legislative Acts” can be found here: http://www.rg.ru/2011/06/06/olimp-dok.html

Migrant Labor and the 2018 World Cup in Russia

iuf.ru
Migrant Labor in Russia: From Golyanovo to the 2018 World Cup

On July 11, 2013, the Russian Federal Law “On the Preparation and Staging of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup in the Russian Federation and the Amendment of Certain Russian Federal Legislative Acts” came into force without any uproar, something inadmissible in such delicate matters. (Hereafter referred to as FZ-108 for brevity’s sake, the full text of the law in the original Russian can be found here.)

While the name of the law might not sound too promising, its content opens up truly outstanding prospects for any Russian employer even tangentially connected with the 2018 World Cup. FZ-108 establishes special conditions for the employment of “foreign nationals and stateless persons” (i.e., migrant laborers) involved in the preparations and staging of the World Cup and Confederations Cup.

Article 9 Chapter 4 generously eliminates the need to obtain permits for the employment of migrant labor and notify the relevant authorities of the conclusion or termination of contracts with foreign workers, or of their arrival or departure. Nor are migrant workers themselves required to obtain work permits. Quotas for the issuance of visas and work permits are waived for those employers involved with the 2018 World Cup. Article 10 is even more interesting: it abolishes all regulation and control over the recruitment of foreign nationals and stateless persons as volunteers—that is, it practically and plainly permits employing migrants without remuneration. Article 11 exceeds all limits of generosity. It allows employers to set long working hours right in the contracts of all workers “employed in the preparation and staging of the events” (with no explanation of what that phrase means) and waives the requirements for the compensation of night work, the compensation of work on weekends and holidays, and the duration and compensation of overtime (as stipulated by Articles 154, 113, 153, and 152, respectively, of the Russian Federal Labor Code). The icing on the cake is Article 56 Chapter 14, which exempts all payments made to migrants under labor, civil, and volunteer contracts from obligatory social security and insurance deductions.

This simplified hiring procedure is a clear incentive for employers to employ foreign workers on the widest possible scale.

Here we should stop and ask ourselves to whom FZ-108 applies. The answer: any entity that is a “FIFA business partner.” By law, this means any legal or natural person in a contractual relationship with FIFA or its subsidiaries and involved in “events.” This might be a commercial partnership agreement or an agreement for provision of services, but in any case the provisions of the law apply to the subsidiaries and subcontractors of all these “business partners.”

Thus, the list of organizations with special rights vis-à-vis workers employed in preparing the “events” is very broad. We can safely include in this list the general contractors and subcontractors involved in building the stadiums, suppliers, FIFA sponsors (all thirty-four of them!), FIFA licensees (i.e., companies that have the right to use the World Cup logo on their products), firms providing security at the World Cup, and so on. Of course, all these companies have subsidiaries and contractors—personnel and temp agencies, construction and security companies, manufacturing facilities, cleaning and catering companies, firms involved in maintaining equipment and buildings, supplying brand-name goods, producing and placing ads, and so on and so forth. By the way, the recruiting agency Kelly Services is among the official suppliers of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. In light of the new law, we can easily imagine the consequences if this or any similar firm signs a contract with FIFA.

It is reasonable to assume the Russian authorities understand they will be unable to get ready for the World Cup employing only Russian citizens and are thus counting on migrant workers. Employers in construction, residential building maintenance, cleaning, retail, and other sectors where the skill requirements are low and cheap labor is the source of profits have long ago discovered this magic wand.

But we cannot help noticing that all these measures have been proposed and ratified by the same government that is literally right now organizing actual raids on migrants and imprisoning them in special camps in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Volgograd, Samara, Rostov-on-Don, and Kaliningrad. Does this mean that the right hand of the Russian state doesn’t know what the left hand is doing? Not in the least.

All the above-named cities are hosting the 2018 World Cup.

In accordance with FZ-108, any migrant worker needs to do just one thing to obtain legal status: become involved with the preparation and staging of the World Cup or Confederations Cup, that is, enter into an employment, civil or volunteer agreement with one of the organizers of the events, or with their contractors or subcontractors. Thus, for example, a migrant from Vietnam now being held at the camp in Golyanovo, after signing a contract with some subcontractor of a World Cup licensee manufacturing mascot dolls for the championship, will be legalized de jure. De facto, however, he or she will go back to another semi-underground workplace, but now no one will be able to exercise any oversight or supervision. Now the migrants who are liberated from slavery or buried after they burn to death in sweatshops locked from the outside will be absolutely legal. It’s a sleight of hand, as they say.

The anti-migration campaign of the authorities stokes openly racist attitudes in society, shifting public attention from societal and labor issues (which had recently come to the forefront) to the search for scapegoats. Meanwhile, there is no guarantee that the practice of stripping migrant workers who are employed in the preparations for the 2018 World Cup of their rights will not be extended to all foreign workers tomorrow, and incorporated in the Russian Federal Labor Code the day after tomorrow, thus fulfilling the most cherished dreams of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.

The fight against xenophobia, the persecution of migrants and the violation of their rights must, therefore, become one of the main issues on the agenda of the trade union and labor movement in Russia.

__________

The name Golyanovo had been linked with migration even earlier, however. In the photo we see the liberated “slaves of Golyanovo,” who had been held for years in the basement of a grocery store, and their saviors from non-governmental organizations. Despite the best efforts of human rights activists, the criminal case against the slave owners has fallen apart. Photo courtesy of the LiveJournal blog Living Tomorrow.

During a fire at a garment factory in Yegorievsk, fourteen migrants from Vietnam perished. They were locked in the factory and thus could not escape to safety. A year later, punishment for the perpetrators of this crime is still a distant prospect. Photo courtesy of 1.tv.ru.