Labor Protests and Their Consequences in Putin’s Russia

Abstract

How have Russia’s workers responded in the face of Russia’s current economic challenges? In this article we explore changes in Russian labor protest over time, through the boom and bust cycles of the Russian economy. Relying on independent Russian databases, we examine evidence of a significant increase in labor protest in recent years, which also reveals that, despite apparent changes in the prosperous 2000s, Russian labor relations and protest are returning to past patterns. The protests are often spontaneous and their likeliness to spread stems less from union support than from policies that impact workers and others as a single category, such as the Platon road-tax system and its impact on truckers. Russia’s truckers also illustrate the potential for economic protests to become politicized. In view of this potential, Russia’s leadership appears to be reinforcing past practices such as avoiding mass layoffs, but such steps may harm long-term economic growth, itself a cause of protest.