By Renfrey Clarke
KEMEROVO, Russia — Gennady Filatyev, director of the Volkov coalmine near this city in the Kuzbass industrial region of Siberia, is a bull of a man. When he leans across a lectern, gesticulating as he makes a point, he could be pawing the ground.
This is one occasion, however, when Filatyev is not about to put his head down and charge. Before him in the hall are more than 100 miners, who have shut down the Volkov mine for the day in protest at its failure to pay wages for four months.
For toiling in primitive and dangerous conditions, the workers haven't even received the bartered foodstuffs often provided by cash-poor Russian enterprises in lieu of wages. The miners are angry, and bawling them out would not be good tactics.
So Filatyev reserves his ire for the Russian market system, which, he asserts, is "savage" and "criminal", condemning working people to an "animal-like" existence. To the miners he is patronising and sorrowful. "I don't have the right to ask you to work without pay, but I have to say that I can't pay you."
There was due to be money, he explains, from the state holding company that controls much of the coal industry in the northern Kuzbass. But with the financial crisis that has gripped Russia since mid-August, the promises have turned to dust. The banking system has largely ceased to function, freezing huge sums in transit from debtors to creditors.
Nevertheless, Filatyev argues, it would be a mistake to extend the strike. The blow, he says, would only fall on the Volkov mine. Granted, the mine is running at a loss, but Filatyev insists it can be saved. Without it, there would be no work for the miners and no hope for them of obtaining work.
Consequently — and here is the real point of his speech — the miners should go back onto the job, while voting to demand the payment within a week of a solid instalment of the funds owing, with the rest to be paid according to a definite schedule.
Workers and bosses
When Filatyev's motion is put to the meeting, the absurdity of the situation hits home. This is a strike meeting and there in front of the workers, alongside the provincial chairperson of the miners' trade union, are two representatives of the coal company, and the mine boss.
Filatyev does not seem to be aware of the paradox. This is a meeting of the mine's labour collective, and doesn't he work here? Won't he lose his job along with everyone else if the mine shuts down?
The miners do not seem to find his presence odd either. On the other hand, they do not seem intimidated, replying to him forcefully from the floor. That's all very well, speaker after speaker asserts, but when are we going to see some money? Give us a definite date.
Here Filatyev's patronising aplomb starts to slip. The miners' requests are put to him civilly enough, but when he responds, his tone is sharp and overbearing. Fellow worker? No way. The relationship, even the language, is that of an old-time Russian landowner, a baryn, talking to his serfs.
And if the mine were to close, would the director have to try to survive by growing potatoes in his garden plot, along with the ex-miners? Hardly. With his commercial contacts, Filatyev would go straight into private business, and no doubt thrive.
Viktor Bunin, the provincial head of Rosugleprof, Russia's main coal trade union, rises to speak. The Russian state authorities are profoundly anti-worker, Bunin declares, and their so-called reforms are a shambles. But an isolated strike would make no impact. The best course, Bunin argues, is for the miners to join the country-wide trade union protest campaign that is to culminate in mass actions on October 7.
An alternative motion is moved from the floor: for work to stop until a million roubles are paid and pledges are given that the remaining debts will settled according to a fixed schedule.
It is Filatyev's motion that is carried, 65 to 60. For the Volkov miners, it will be back down the pit, with no particular hope of being paid for months to come.
The meeting over, Filatyev makes a beeline for me, a foreign journalist. "Honestly, I didn't know what I could tell them", he says regretfully. "They've got a brutal life, and now I can't even promise them money. If it were up to you, what would you do?"
Why not say it? The only way out for the miners, for all hired workers in Russia, is to set about building a massive political movement that really fights for their interests.
Filatyev reflects on this for a moment. "Yes, that's it!", he exclaims. "What Russia needs is a strong leader!"
He invites me to his office for a question-and-answer session before he, trade union leader Bunin, and the coal company representatives talk over the day's decision.
But before Filatyev can take his seat, there is a woman petitioner in the corridor. I watch through the open door as the mask of benevolence drops away. Suddenly livid with fury, the mine director screams at the woman, sends her packing. The patriarch is also a despot.
Just as suddenly, the mask is back in place. Where are you from in Australia, Filatyev asks me jovially. The mine director, it turns out, was in Sydney himself once.
I begin asking questions. How does the Volkov mine rate? Is it considered to have prospects? One of the coal company officials smiles ironically.
Technically, he says, the mine should be dying. It produces low-grade steaming coal, and the equipment is old and worn-out. Under any other director, the official maintains, the mine would have shut its gates five years ago. But its productivity is relatively good, because of a skilled workforce, good labour discipline and tight organisation. The mine could survive, deserves to survive. But now, with the country's finances blown apart, nothing can be guaranteed.
Perestroika
On the steps of the mine offices a dozen or so miners are standing about as I leave. They ply me with questions and comments.
"Why don't you come down the mine with us? You wouldn't come up again — what's down there would scare the life out of you."
"We have to go down there every day — we're forced to. And we don't even get paid for it."
"Up there", someone says while gesturing towards the director's office, "that's the Russian middle class. Did he tell you he's been to Australia? We can't even afford the bus fare into Kemerovo."
And is Filatyev getting paid? I wonder aloud. Half a dozen voices together: "You bet he is. And well, too."
Meanwhile, people want to know, what's life like for miners in Australia? How much do they make each month? I hazard a guess. There are whistles and rolled eyes.
"But listen, they didn't get where they are by doing as they were told. They built strong unions and fought like hell. And if they stopped fighting, it'd all be gone in no time. They'd be like you are now."
An awkward silence. People seem to be thinking: What the hell have we got to fight with? Who gives a damn if we go on strike?
Spread out across the slope opposite are the houses of the miners' settlement. They are far from the worst houses in Russian villages, I comment. Most are solid and spacious, and many are of brick.
"No-one's built anything new here for years", someone notes. "See those cars there? They were all bought 10 years ago." Back then, people volunteer, this wasn't a bad place. You worked, you got paid and in the end you at least finished up with something.
My bus rolls up and there are handshakes all round. "Tell it to your Australian miners from us! ... And if anyone offers you some perestroika, say you don't want any."