Dancing to the tune of the employer? Union–management relationships at Nordic subsidiaries in Russia

Abstract

This research concerns the labour–management relationship at Nordic-owned industrial enterprises in Russia. The analysis draws upon case study data from four unionized factories in the northwest region of Russia that represent different union–management (U-M) relationships representing varying degrees of confrontation and cooperation. Although the long-run dynamics of the U-M relationship at all the factories is heading for partnership (‘dancing’), short-term dynamics may contain periods of antagonism (‘boxing’). There is little indication of a Nordic-type ‘healthy combination’ of recurring dialogue between boxing and dancing at the factories. Moreover, the managements have set limitations in the action allowed and the scope for partnership, and there are discrepancies in the cultural and identity dimensions of ‘dancing’ at the factories. The findings support the hybridization approach to the IR model transfer of multinational companies as Nordic employers seek to escape standards that are in place in their home IR regimes.

Keywords

Antagonism labour–management relationship model transfer Nordic companies partnership Russia trade unions

Introduction

In previous years, there has been an inclination by trade unions in different national contexts to assume the position of ‘social partnership’, representing a desire to move away from the perceived ‘adversarial’ industrial relations (IR) of the past to enduring labour–management cooperation (Martinez Lucio and Stuart, 2005). This study examines this situation in the Russian context by examining the union–management (U-M) relationship at Nordic-owned factories in Russia.

The labour–management relationship in Russia has its roots in Soviet times. Given the complicated position of the union as a mediator between the workers and administration in the Soviet era, the road for the development of the U-M relationship has been rocky. Ashwin (2007: 322–325) puts forward three ways by which enterprise unions could reconcile their divided loyalties to management and workers in Soviet times: by providing services to their members (a familiar and comfortable territory for union officers), by defending the interests of enterprises in the face of external pressures (an uneasy position as the defence of the workers’ case is subjected to the interests of the enterprises) and by acting as mediators between the two sides rather than as representatives of their members (a problematic alternative because it does not develop mobilizational capacity).

In the new era of Russian capitalism, the Soviet legacies have to be reconciled with the ideas of unionism that have prevailed in capitalist societies. There are a few promising typologies to characterize U-M relationships, which are based on the notion of union strategy. These include Martinez Lucio’s and Weston’s (1992) new realism/social partnership, an extension of collective partnership and oppositionalism; Jeffries’ (1996) conflict, containment/aggression, accommodation, cooperation and collusion; as well as Claydon’s (1998) militancy, incorporation and partnership. More recent IR literature has particularly focused on the different ‘shades’ of partnership as strategies chosen by the trade unions of the West (Wilkinsonet al., 2014). In these societies, partnership has been argued to have a wide potential as a model of employee representation (Johnstone, 2015: 154).

Although a wide variety of options might well grasp the complex nature of U-M relations, a binary approach using the concepts of adversarial relationship and partnership is relatively common in the IR literature (Gall, 2001; Huzzardet al., 2004; Kitay and Marchington, 1996; Stuart and Martinez Lucio, 2005: 9). Kitay and Marchington (1996) dichotomized between cooperative and adversarial management–employee interaction by denoting IR as being characterized by harmony and partnership (cooperative management–employee interaction) and distrust and suspicion (adversarial management–employee interaction). Closely resembling the partnership–adversarialism division are Kelly’s (1998: 60) polar types of ‘moderation’ and ‘militancy’ as well as Katz and Kochan’s (2000) division between integrative and distributive bargaining.

Drawing upon the adversarialism–antagonism dichotomy, this analysis employs the metaphors of ‘dancing’ and ‘boxing’ to capture the essence of the U-M relationship, not only for the sake of clarity of expression but also for their potential use as concepts highlighting model transfer from one context to another. The concepts of boxing and dancing offer a conceptual tool for cross-country analysis of IR. They are particularly useful for describing the peculiarities of the Nordic IR model. The U-M relationship in Nordic countries is characterized neither by pure antagonism nor by partnership but by a healthy combination of the two (Huzzardet al., 2004). Hence, the fundaments of the ‘Nordic model’ are operationalized here by using these terms.

Even though national models are developed in a context-specific historical process, there is the potential of IR model transfer to other geographical contexts. However, while some aspects of IR remain home-country features only, some are transferred to foreign subsidiaries of multinational companies. Enterprises seem to be highly selective as to the transferability of their national model. For example, Lamare et al. (2013) found that while Nordic multinationals escaped a home-country IR model in their overseas subsidiaries, the German ones did not do so. While the boxing–dancing dialectic is a peculiar feature of the Nordic model, I put forward the following questions: (1) do the Nordic managements allow for a healthy combination of boxing and dancing to occur at their Russian subsidiaries, as they do in the countries of origin, and (2) how do the Nordic ideas of a wide scope for both boxing and dancing along with their action, spatial, cultural and identity dimensions manifest themselves at the Russian subsidiaries? Besides these, a more specific research question addresses the type of model transfer: Does real model transfer occur from Nordic headquarters to Russian subsidiaries (the ‘home-country effect’), or is the ‘host-country effect’ or the hybridization approach to multinationals’ model transfer dominant?

This article is structured as follows. First, the concepts of ‘boxing’ and ‘dancing’ are introduced. Second, the IR transfer of multinational companies (MNCs) from home to host countries is discussed. Third, an account of industrial relations in post-socialist Russia is provided. The method and data are introduced in the fourth section. In the findings section the U-M relationships at the four Nordic case study companies are elaborated on in terms of the concepts of boxing and dancing. The conclusion and discussion draw together the findings and put forward policy implications for social partnership at foreign subsidiaries in Russia.

Boxing and dancing

In Huzzardet al.’s (2004) terms, ‘boxing’ refers to the process of collective bargaining, although it also denotes industrial action. The term ‘dancing’, for its part, refers to partnership processes between the union and management. In the Nordic context of strong trade unions, the adversarial and cooperative stances of a union can be mutually beneficial (Huzzard and Nilsson, 2004). Huzzard and Nilsson take Sweden as an example, where the negotiation positions of the union can be strengthened by the legitimacy in the eyes of the employer gained through partnership. The creation of a statutory basis for ‘dancing’ is not particularly relevant to countries such as Finland and Sweden, where employee participation and representation are intrinsic to the role of the trade unions and their codetermination rights (Broughton, 2005: 204–205). Moreover, social partnership is cultivated in these countries predominantly at a practical level rather than as a guiding ideology in workplace-level IR (Jensen, 2002).

The partnership stance of the union can, however, only go so far, and the union’s legitimacy needs to be maintained constantly among the rank-and-file workers. Provided a strong power base, social partnership can be beneficial for unions, but in the case of weakness, the partnership stance can contain risks. One of the risks is associated with downgrading the development of membership-led strategies and undermining workplace activism as a trade-off for a cooperative relationship with the management (Martinez Lucio and Stuart, 2005). The shop stewards in Rolfsen’s (2011) study on a Norwegian company raised this issue by claiming that they spent less than 20% of their time boxing and more than 80% dancing. In Rolfsen’s study this did not seem to pose a big problem, and neither does it in my own study (Sippola, 2012) on Finnish metalworking shops where union representatives skilfully combined the role of codetermination and local bargaining. Social partnership might also be worth developing in the Nordic context with its strong IR traditions because partnership approaches are more likely to be effective in situations in which employers recognize the legitimate voice of employees in the decision-making process (Martinez Lucio and Stuart, 2005).

Besides enquiring into the recurring dialogue between the boxing and dancing processes, this study also throws light on the dynamics of boxing and dancing at the researched factories, using Huzzard’s (2004a: 36) dimensions as a basis. The four dimensions of boxing and dancing are shown in Table 1.

Table 1.

The four dimensions of boxing and dancing.

Dimension	Boxing	Dancing
Action dimension (mode of engagement between parties)	Discussion/negotiation; then agreement reached through give and take.	Initial identification of shared or overlapping interests and goals; then dialogue.
Spatial dimension (arenas of engagement between parties)	Boxing rings: formal negotiation through collective bargaining machinery and joint consultation; codetermination where no consensus exists.	Dance floors: ongoing dialogue on organizational matters; codetermination on issues where consensus exists; joint development projects.
Cultural dimension (mindset governing, engagement between parties)	Boxing culture: divergent interests and zero-sum outcomes.	Dancing culture: shared or overlapping interests and positive-sum outcomes; commitment to firm by union and ethical commitment by employers.
Identity dimension (roles of the parties)	Bearers of class interests – adversaries in struggles over surplus value.	Value-adding partners.

Adapted from Huzzard (2004a: 36).

Furthermore, this study builds on Huzzard’s (2004b) notion concerning boxing and dancing as either strategic or tactical choices. Strategic choices involve the long-term alignment of an organization with its environment and can be made only within a certain space or freedom of action, termed as ‘policy space’ (Huzzard, 2004b: 218–219). In Huzzard’s words: ‘unions with a stronger power base will usually have greater policy space than those with weaker power bases’ (2004b: 218). If, for example, a post-socialist enterprise union has a weaker power base than the Nordic enterprise unions arguably have, the former have narrower choices for strategy. The tactical or day-to-day level of boxing and dancing occurs within either a predominantly boxing or predominantly dancing mindset.

The home–host country MNC model transfer debate

The fact that all the case study companies are in Nordic ownership raises the issue of the transfer of the Nordic U-M relations model to Russia. The issue of model transfer must be set against the backdrop of MNCs’ increasing impact on the world economy, where the scrutiny of MNCs should go beyond the mere global–local tension in management practices and address both the aspect of integration of the operations of MNCs across countries and more elaborate differentiation among countries (Edwardset al., 2013). The angle of cross-cultural comparisons is important in connection with model transfer from a Nordic country to a post-socialist one. Sweden, a country with a strong power base for social partnership, has good prospects for both boxing and dancing at the enterprise level, although there is some evidence of union preference for the latter (Huzzard and Nilsson, 2004: 91). By contrast in Romania, a post-socialist country with a weaker power base for the U-M relationship, enterprise-level prospects are characterized by co-option by the management, although unions here too prefer dancing to boxing (Trif and Koch, 2004: 184).

Much of the literature on IR in post-socialist countries does not seem to support the model transfer argument. There is nothing to predict foreign investors’ attitude toward employee representation by unions based on the nationality of the management (Pollert, 1999, cited in Bluhm, 2001). By and large in the Baltic context, little IR model transfer from the home country could be observed at Nordic-owned subsidiaries (Sippola, 2011). The same was true also in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) context at German- and Nordic-owned subsidiaries (Bluhm, 2001; Dörrenbächer, 2002; Fichter, 2003; Kvinge and Ulrichsen, 2008).

Guglielmo Meardi (2007) argued that a company’s country of origin matters in shaping local IR practices and that foreign companies have a tendency to depart from the national common IR practice. Moreover, MNCs appear to be selective in their home-country transfer of employment practices. For example, German multinationals were ready to transfer their home-country industrial relations model only under host-country pressure and as a compromise (Meardiet al., 2009). Lamare et al. (2013), for their part, concluded that even if German multinationals did not seek to escape a home-country IR model in their overseas subsidiaries, Nordic ones did. Accordingly, the question is whether MNCs’ model transfer supports the home effects (the transmission of attitudes and behaviour forged in their home environment to their foreign operations), host effects (host-country effect dominating) or hybridization approach (multinationals adjust their host-country IR practices so that they will gain maximum competitive advantage) (Lamareet al., 2013).

Industrial relations in post-socialist Russia

Trade unions in post-communist countries in general can be characterized as weak (Crowley, 2004; Mailand and Due, 2004; Sznajder Lee and Trappmann, 2014). In terms of membership, Russia might provide an exception to the rule of post-communist union weakness. However, reliable calculations concerning trade union membership in Russia are difficult to make. In 2005, union density was at 46% (Ashwin, 2007: 319). A more recent assessment still gives an optimistic estimate of the unionization rate in Russia as being 45% (Kozina, 2009), but the rate is continuously falling. Trade unions are the single largest membership organization in Russia, and by sheer numbers they would have the capacity to be either disruptive or supportive of the politics adopted by the government. They have, however, done little in this respect (Davis, 2006). The bare membership numbers do not reveal the real situation of trade unionism in the post-socialist context, and Varga (2013) called for better understanding of post-communist unionism through a focus shift from trade union strength to worker interest representation. The Russian case replicates the post-communist experience that trade unions have failed to transform their high membership density into political or shop-floor influence (Varga, 2013).

As trade unions have to deal with the legacy of Soviet-type unionism, they simultaneously have to reconcile their roles with the functions of capitalist trade unions. Certain Soviet-era functions still haunt Russian workers’ minds (e.g. Kozina, 2009; Olimpieva, 2011). For example, Davis (2006: 207) asserted that a common opinion among Russian workers is that ‘we have no trade union’ (u nas net profsoiuzov), and that they believe that all trade unions are ‘sham organizations’ aimed at making the leadership rich and the average person poor.

It also makes sense to consider Russian trade union leaders as a group separate from the workers, with vested interests and distinctly political goals (e.g. Folkersma, 2009: 18; Olimpieva and Orttung, 2012). The functions these two stakeholders associated with trade unions can either converge toward or diverge from managers’ ideas of unions. It is not self-evident in the Russian context that both union representatives and workers represent labour against a management that represents capital – the patterns of these relationships are more complex.

In Russia, workers are organized in so-called basic unions (pervichnaya organizatiya or pervichka). These are workplace- or company-based registered and independent unions. Registration is required for the collection of membership fees and in order for a union to carry out activities requiring financing; it also is required for the conclusion of collective agreements because all agreements are listed in a registry at the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Russian Federation. There can be several pervichkas in the same workplace representing different confederations (Folkersma, 2009: 17–22).

In 2002, Russian trade union defence of labour rights suffered a setback when the largest federation, FNPR, backed the government in modifying the Labour Code in such a manner that, besides depriving pervichkas of the right to veto the firing of workers and setting restrictions on collective agreements, it de facto prohibited striking at workplaces (Olimpieva, 2011).

It is emblematic that the FNPR contributed to the limitations on the right to strike in the 2002 Labour Code in exchange for consolidation of the federation’s position in relation to the governing bodies (Weiss, 2012). In a way, this move signified a return to an IR regime that prevailed under state socialism. What is more, this tendency is the opposite of what is occurring in China, a quasi-post-communist superpower, where the number of strikes is growing and workers are becoming more assertive (Elfstrom and Kuruvilla, 2014). In a word, Russian workers lack both structural power (which goes hand in hand with political suppression) and associational power (Coe and Jordhus-Lier, 2011). The state occupies the dominant role in IR in both Russia and China, which is in apparent contradiction to the Nordic IR model in which the main emphasis is not on state regulation but on negotiations between the labour market parties that are considerably free from state intervention (Elvander, 2002).

The state occupies the dominant role in drawing up labour and social policy, whereas the room for organizing protests in enterprises has been severely limited. Given this imbalance of power, ‘the unions and employers do not negotiate with each other directly with the state functioning as an intermediary … but rather fight each other for direct influence over the state’ (Olimpieva and Orttung, 2012). Of the union confederations in Russia, only the FNPR has managed to maintain its political influence. It has openly supported Vladimir Putin in his presidential campaigns and has sided with the ruling United Russia Party.

Although at the dissolution of the party-state, Russian trade unions proclaimed their role as defenders of workers’ rights (Clarke, 2005), such a role is mainly only associated with the so-called ‘alternative’ unions, not with the FNPR and its employer- and government-friendly stance; in reality this means that defence of rights only refers to a minority of workers.¹ The federations VKT² and KTR³ – which recently merged – as a whole are widely perceived as an umbrella organization of the alternative trade union movement. Although the official trade unions rely on what Olimpieva (2012) calls a distributional or bureaucratic mode based on cooperation between the employer and the union, the alternative unions are focused more on the defence of workers’ rights; their activities draw on conflict-based ideology and grassroots mobilization (Kozina, 2009; Olimpieva, 2012). The political influence of the alternative unions deteriorated dramatically after the adoption of the new Labour Code, which worsened the conditions under which the free unions could operate. Consequently, as Olimpieva and Orttung (2012) concluded, the fate of the alternative unions in the 2000s has been to focus on ‘surviving and preserving their organizations’.

Data and method

The data for this research were acquired during a research project, funded by the Academy of Finland, titled: ‘The labour process at Nordic factories in Russia’ in 2011–2013. The main goals of this project were to shed light on what impact Nordic foreign direct investment has on personnel management in Russia and to what extent hangovers from the Soviet era affect management practices in the subsidiaries. Although the initial aim of the study was not to scrutinize U-M relationships in the case study companies, this emerged as a theme while conducting the interviews. The ‘template’ approach used during the interviews was conducive to making modifications to the analysis guide or codebook (King, 1994: 26);⁴ the codebook mainly was built a priori, using existing knowledge, but it was completed a posteriori by drawing on the initial analysis of the interview data.

The research strategy was that of the case study. Case studies are used when researching complex social interactions and power relations, especially when they are in flux (Kitay and Callus, 1998). The researcher acquired a list of Nordic-owned subsidiaries in northwest Russia from a media survey and material provided by the consulates, and randomly contacted about 20 of them. Seven subsidiaries, of which three were in Finnish, two Danish, one Norwegian and one Swedish ownership, consented to participate in this research; the four largest were chosen for analysis as these were the ones which had a trade union organization. At the selected subsidiaries, one to three representatives of the management and six to twelve workers were interviewed, depending on the size of the factory. See Table 2 for basic information on the factories.

Table 2.

Basic information on the factories researched.

	Derevo	Stroymaterial	Provod	Himstroy
Sector	Construction material	Construction material	Metal	Construction material
Market orientation	Europe	Local market	Europe	Local market
Mode of entry	Joint venture -> acquisition	Brownfield	Brownfield	Greenfield/acquisition
Established / acquired	1990	mid-1990s	1992	1995/1996
Workers	600	500	900	250 (unit 1) / 600 (unit 2)
Union members	350	130	Almost 400	150
Collective agreement	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

Interviews were used as the research method; thematic interviews were conducted with representatives from the management and unions and semi-structured interviews were conducted with employees. King (2004: 21) argued that interviewing enables the researcher to address focused questions about aspects of organizational life. The original themes of the questions for the managers, employees and their representatives encompassed work organization; worker information and consultation; trade union membership, the functions of trade unions and the image of trade unions among the workers; collective negotiations; and working conditions. The perceptions of the unions and the management’s behaviour related to these themes were traced from the different viewpoints of the management, union officials and workers and thus were subjected to a form of data triangulation. Through data triangulation, a researcher can accumulate a body of knowledge which most impartial observers would validate (Stake, 1995: 110).

Interviews with representatives of the management and shop stewards took on average one hour and with workers, half an hour. Data also consisted of notes made during company visits and some participant observation (during some visits to the shop floors of Derevo, Himstroy and Provod, the researcher was able to make observations on the labour process and talk to the workers). These visits were occasional by nature and therefore did not offer any systematic data source.

The interview schedule was typically organized by the human resources manager, except for at Provod where the researcher was able to find interviewees independently. The personnel director at Provod accompanied the researcher on the shop floor when he selected interviewees at their work stations. There was not, however, a big difference between whether the selection process was organized by a representative of the management or by the researcher because the topic itself (Nordic investment and the nature of labour relations) was of interest to the companies. In all cases, a research permit was obtained from the Nordic headquarters, and the management at each shop wished to fulfil the requirements for the selection (both genders, different ages, different occupations, different processes at the factory) as accurately as they could. In fact, it became clear that the company management respected the researcher’s professional skills to carry out the research and to provide independent reports on the IR situation at the factories.

Findings

In the following subsections, the four Nordic case study companies are presented in light of the metaphors of boxing and dancing. The case studies of Derevo and Stroymaterial represent those companies with a union organization which has hangovers from the Soviet era. The cases of Provod and Himstroy encompass factories in which the unions were established in the 2000s. The latter organization especially is also characterized by relatively antagonist U-M relations. Despite ostensible differences between the cases, common lines of development of the U-M relationship can be traced among them. The tendencies are captured by the action, spatial, cultural and identity dimensions of boxing and dancing. The results of the cross-case comparison are presented in the concluding section.

Dancing – perhaps too close? Derevo

Derevo is the biggest factory in a provincial town with 15,000 inhabitants. The trade union at Derevo has existed since the factory was established in the 1990s. At this factory, the union was the strongest in terms of membership. The process of concluding a collective agreement at Derevo was perhaps the most sophisticated among the researched factories. A special committee, consisting of five representatives from the union and five from management, was formed to negotiate the agreement. The factory had perhaps the most ‘Scandinavian management style’ among the case study subsidiaries, involving trade union representatives as a real counterpart to the general director. The union members at this factory were mainly middle-aged women, although a large proportion of the workforce was men. For Derevo’s union, the regional structure was important but it had no contact with the union structures of the company’s country of origin.

It is still widely held among the union leaders that trade unions are – as they used to be in the Soviet era – providers of social goods, i.e. holiday camps, premises for vacation and so on. The shop steward openly admitted that: ‘Here, it is more why we are organizing, for the children, for the families. The families are utilizing [the activities of the union] here.’ The unionism that the trade union had adopted resembled that of ‘traditional welfarism’, as observed by Morrison and Croucher (2010) at a Moldovan clothing factory, in which continuity was sought with the Soviet past. It was somewhat emblematic that the shop steward mentioned, in relation to possible actions: ‘They [the members of the union] have families. And we haven’t yet reached that level on which I [would] defend labour interests.’ This hinted at the fact that more militant action was not possible as long as the membership profile of the union remained the same.

Also, the general manager at Derevo eagerly highlighted the Soviet-type functions of the trade union and the cooperation between the union and management in organizing sports events. The management, therefore, used the union as a tool for building company spirit, although there were also ‘real’ negotiations with union representatives on distributive and other labour issues. There was a suggestion box for workers’ initiatives but it was little used. Supervisors held personal development talks with their subordinates twice a year; this arrangement had been put into practice a few years earlier. The management occasionally organized meetings with the whole workforce as well as further ad hoc meetings with groups of workers.

There were no antagonistic sentiments observed in the interview with the trade union representative at Derevo. This notion can be linked to the weakness of the position of shop stewards. The chief shop steward at Derevo appeared to lie between a rock and a hard place. She admitted in the interview that the importance of the function of the shop steward had decreased in the 2000s. The position of the union appeared to be limited to the tactic of dancing within a wider strategic partnership framework.

Although the traditional image of the union was still embedded in the social reality of the older work organizations, i.e. Derevo and Stroymaterial, generally speaking, a new type of thinking was gaining ground at those plants as well. Some respondents at these factories criticized the trade union for being overly compliant toward management. At Derevo, a male operator (48) and male fitter (40) criticized the trade union on different grounds, although both had expected a more militant form of unionism. The former regarded the union as a part of the administration and not as independent in this respect. The latter had expected more industrial action – strikes, as occur elsewhere – to revitalize the function of the union.

Very little boxing, mostly dancing: Stroymaterial

Stroymaterial is a plant located on the outskirts of a major city. The union at Stroymaterial was the third strongest – after Derevo and Provod – although the unionization trend was declining. The union at Stroymaterial was affiliated to a construction workers’ federation in a metropolitan area. According to the shop steward, there were 450 members at the time the union was established in 1999 (the size of the site was 1000 employees), the model of which originated in the trade union under the previous owner.

The IR climate at the factory was relatively well established. For example, the same person had served as chief shop steward since the establishment of the union. She was allotted two days per week to do her trade union work. Union members seemed to be older, while younger workers had little incentive to join except for social security or family reasons. Hence, a similar pattern to that at Derevo was evident at this factory. There was a collective agreement signed at the factory, and the union representative held regular consultation talks with the managing director. The union shop steward at Stroymaterial enumerated many areas of bargaining with the management – thus hinting at some attempts of boxing in a tactical sense – without convincingly citing any single issue to which the union had contributed. This gave the impression that the union was not fully independent in reality. Perhaps the only activity that would hint at the union’s active role was the fact that, according to the shop steward, it had taken part in joint demonstrations. In addition to trade union consultation, there was a small committee, established not long ago, which discussed welfare issues such as the functioning of the canteen.

The shop steward highlighted an antagonistic relationship in the past: ‘I had conflicts [with the management] … during the [tenure of the] previous personnel director. … I just told her that I cannot only reply “yes”. Irrespective of whether you like it or not, I have the right to say “no” to you. And if you are a normal director, you are supposed to understand that if I will be good for you, I will be bad for the workers.’ The adversarial atmosphere at Stroymaterial, however, became friendlier after the change of director. Hence, the overall boxing strategy during the previous director’s time had been exchanged for a partnership strategy within which smaller bouts of boxing are still allowed. This resembles Gough and Ogden’s (2008: 55) study of a New Zealand dairy company at which boxing was possible about some issues over time, but the balance of the relationship was toward dancing, and bouts of boxing were not allowed to undermine that balance.

The shop steward regarded the function of the union as lying somewhere between the traditional (Soviet) and modern organization, and she was rather confident of the employer’s ability to liquidate any trade union should they wish to do so. ‘When a chairman asks, for example, a master: I am fed up with the trade union organization. Let your [subordinates] write a letter of resignation, they’ll write it – with one hundred percent certainty.’ The Stroymaterial shop steward aptly put the blame for the weakness of the trade union on the decisions made by the federal government. ‘The governmental bodies support the trade unions very little. They [the unions] are being weakened in practice.’ Her observations corresponded to the regulative reality since the 2002 Labour Code had drastically reduced the room for independent trade unions to manoeuvre (Olimpieva, 2011; Olimpieva and Orttung, 2012).

From boxing to dancing: Provod

Provod is one of the biggest factories in a provincial town with 30,000 inhabitants. The union organization at Provod was the second strongest among the researched factories. It was established in 2005. The union chairperson at this factory emphasized that an enormous workload was put on the union committee members because of complaints, norms and organizational and cultural activities. The chairperson was able to allocate three work days per week to fulfil her trade union work. There were some contacts with the union structures of the company’s country of origin. There was a collective agreement in force at this factory. The managing director had a monthly meeting with the trade union chairperson. Also, the human resources manager had daily communication with the union chairperson.

The U-M relationship used to be much more conflict-based under the former chairperson of the trade union, when, according to the managing director, ‘there were plenty of court cases on every tiny issue’. The managing director was openly hostile to the former chairperson. He asserted: ‘We made many kinds of [tricks] with these Russians, who were my friends. We managed to use all kinds of tricks in order to give her a bad reputation in the eyes of the workers. They [the workers] then kicked her off and elected a new one.’ According to the managing director, changing the union chairperson was necessary to ‘get things arranged’. The managing director of Provod had reasons for ousting the trade union representative; as the former asserted, ‘There are dangerous unions in Russia, indeed.’

Since the new chairperson took over, there has been no litigation. The managing director agreed with the union spokesperson that ‘there will not be any court cases anymore; if we cannot agree upon matters here, it is the same as closing the factory’. The newly adopted management style might have rendered the power balance more unfavourable for the union, as an operator (male 32) put it: ‘It is the employer who dictates the conditions for the trade union.’

The union chairperson at Provod pointed out that the trade union function had moved away from an adversarial position to one that cooperates with the administration. ‘We aim at finding some kind of compromise that is good for the both of us so that nobody is offended. Well, to a large degree, [the idea of the union is that of] defending the interests of our employees.’ In other words, the union and management were involved in a ‘partnership to do battle in the interests of the enterprise’ (Ashwin, 2004: 34). The chairperson maintained that, for the future success of the enterprise, it is necessary ‘sometimes to close one’s eyes to something, as if we did not notice it’, and ‘one needs always to give in’. These accounts were a far cry from the adversarial perception of unionism at this factory a few years earlier.

Due to the confrontations between the union and management at earlier stages of the IR history of Provod, some workers were seeking less militant positions but not complete collusion with the management. The union chairperson, however, had assumed a rather collusive stance toward partnership to avoid the antagonistic legacy at the factory, while she simultaneously acknowledged that the management takes the initiative in issues under negotiation. This reflects, according to Huzzard (2004b: 223), a rather reactive stance on the part of the union with the employer leading the dance. The overall state of the union at this factory resembled ‘sponsorship’, a situation in which ‘the union becomes highly dependent on management for its future strength’ (Ackerset al., 2005: 37). The union’s previously active role had turned into dancing with management, and this had weakened its authority.

Boxing with one leg and dancing with the other: Himstroy

Similarly to Stroymaterial, Himstroy is a plant located on the outskirts of a major city. The position of the union at Himstroy (which itself consisted of two units with varying organizational history) was the weakest among the case studies. The larger unit (acquired in 2006) had about 130 union members at the time of the interviews, whereas there were only a dozen members in the smaller unit, which was established as a greenfield factory in 1995. The trade union organization at the larger unit had been established a year prior to the interviews, while the trade union in the smaller unit had existed since 2008.

There appeared to be tensions between the two different unions and between the MPRA-affiliated (see note 1) union at the smaller unit and the management. At the larger unit, there was obvious collusion between the union and management. The latter union was treated as the preferred partner by the management, and it was consulted on issues related to work organization such as the new pay system. Only a year before the interviews the management had initiated quarterly consultation meetings with those production workers who did not belong to the trade union. In addition to this, there was an annual information event for all employees, which now was going to be arranged quarterly. There was no collective agreement at the time of the interviews, although the management was going to start a negotiation process.

The union chairperson at the larger unit (the one that still enjoyed the confidence of the employer) seemed to have learned from experience not to argue too much with management because she repeatedly uttered that there was no room for a conflictual stance against the employer as they had together been able to resolve many problems related to the salary system and attestation (estimating pay rates for different work processes). The collusion of the union chairperson with the employer was easily seen in the way she defined her role: ‘[I] work with the management … they always help me, and they never reject me.’ The union at Himstroy’s larger unit had not yet participated in any actions taken by the union federation because, according to the shop steward, the union cell was ‘still young’.

In the accounts given by the managers at Himstroy, hostile attitudes toward ‘too’ militant unionism at the smaller unit were in evidence. The HR director did not hide his antipathies toward the shop steward and complained about the emergence of the union ‘set up on a conflict basis’. After having had ‘tough discussions’ with management, the trade union shop steward at this unit was put under ‘house arrest’, as one interviewed worker put it, where he was not able to take part in common activities during the working day.

The interviewed workers seemed to view the trade union organization negatively at Himstroy’s smaller unit. As was the case at Provod, these views were due mainly to the antagonism between factory management and the trade union chairperson. The situation at Himstroy’s larger unit was different. There were positive or indifferent attitudes toward unions among the workers. The management’s policy to favour partnership with the newly established union at the larger unit of Himstroy, while marginalizing the union at the smaller unit, might have encouraged the workers’ desire to join the union. Some workers interviewed at the larger unit had recently joined or were considering joining the union. Although officially the ideology of partnership prevailed, the accounts given by these workers hinted at antagonisms beneath the ostensibly tranquil surface of the U-M relationship.

The events revolving around Himstroy offer an example of how the nature of the U-M relationship has shifted from a predominantly boxing strategy to one of predominantly dancing (see Huzzard, 2004b: 219) on the initiative of the employer, which implies (as was the case with Provod) reactive, employer-led, leadership of the dance against a weakening power base of the unions. However, the scope for partnership seemed to be expanding at this factory, which seemed to be a reward to the larger unit’s union for not engaging in the MPRA-type militancy that had emerged at the smaller unit. The union, paradoxically, enjoyed greater ‘policy space’ in terms of workers’ influence on work organization (see Huzzard, 2004b: 219) because of the boxing episode that occurred between the competing union and management.

Discussion

This section first summarizes the occurrence and patterns of boxing and dancing at the researched factories and then draws conclusions whether Nordic-type patterns of dancing and boxing are transferred to the Russian subsidiaries. The first research question was whether a Nordic-type, well-functioning combination of boxing (denoting collective bargaining and industrial action) and dancing (partnership) works at the Nordic-owned workplaces in Russia. This seemed to work quite well in one of the case study factories, Derevo. However, in the Derevo case the union representative had recognized the union’s restricted room for manoeuvre, which was not a promising point of departure for the future of the boxing–dancing dialectic. In Nordic countries, where unions have a stronger position at the workplace, the legitimacy in the eyes of the employer gained through partnership can serve as the backbone for the union’s negotiating position (Huzzard and Nilsson, 2004; Rolfsen, 2011). However, the relative strength of the union at this particular factory, in terms of membership and bargaining agenda, seemed to be destined to diminish.

A more or less similar status of the trade union was encountered at Stroymaterial. At this factory, a short period of boxing was followed by a longer period of dancing, which obviously will not turn back into a boxing stance. The factories with a history of real boxing at some stage of their union organization’s trajectory, Provod and Himstroy, were cases in point as to the employer’s ability to undermine the boxers’ achievements and adjust U-M relations to its liking. At Provod, the management succeeded in firing the former trade union chairperson. The successor proved to be a much better dancer to the tune of management. At Himstroy, the management’s dancing with the favoured, more compliant trade union while boxing with the problematic, militant union was a case of successful divide-and-conquer, which led to the marginalization of the latter. At these three factories, therefore, dancing seemed to be the only realistic strategy, with limited scope for issues to be dealt with through social partnership.

As regards the second research question on the dimensions of boxing–dancing at the researched factories, the main findings are put together in Table 3.

Table 3.

Dimensions of boxing and dancing at the researched factories.

Dimension	Boxing	Dancing
Action dimension (mode of engagement between parties)	Collective bargaining (Derevo, Stroymaterial, Provod)	Consultations on salaries with trade union (TU) representative (Derevo); TU representative’s consultative talks with management (Stroymaterial, Provod); non-TU workers’ consultative talks with management (Himstroy)
Spatial dimension (arenas of engagement between parties)	Wage bargaining (Derevo); limited company collective bargaining (Stroymaterial, Provod)	Committee for welfare issues (Stroymaterial); payment system, attestation (Himstroy)
Cultural dimension (mindset governing, engagement between parties)	No antagonist sentiments (Derevo); conflictual relationships in the past (Stroymaterial, Provod); ongoing conflict with the TU (the smaller unit of Himstroy)	Company spirit building (Derevo); active building of partnership ideology (the larger unit of Himstroy)
Identity dimension (roles of the parties)	The role of defender of workers’ rights neglected (Derevo, Stroymaterial, Provod, larger unit of Himstroy)	Involving TU representatives as a real counterpart (Derevo); partnership in the interests of the enterprise (Provod)

The action dimension in Table 3 looks pretty normal from a Scandinavian perspective, while boxing takes the form of collective bargaining and trade union representatives hold consultative talks with the management at three of the researched factories. The spatial dimension, however, deserves closer attention when it comes to the notion of model transfer. Although in Sweden traditional salary negotiations comprising the nucleus of boxing and dancing involve union representation on consultative bodies of the company (Huzzard and Nilsson, 2004: 91), there is partial implementation of these practices at one factory only. The absence of these functions at the researched factories seems to confirm the hybridization hypothesis as to multinationals’ model transfer, where multinationals escape their home-country models and adjust their host-country IR practices so that they will gain maximum competitive advantage (Lamareet al., 2013).

As regards the cultural dimension of boxing and dancing, the picture of model transfer from Nordic countries to Russia gets more diversified. Although boxing as a mindset was almost completely non-existent at Derevo, it was still a spectre among workers and trade union representatives at Stroymaterial and Provod, and especially at Himstroy. The domination of a host-country effect (see Lamareet al., 2013) might be the key to explaining the situation at Stroymaterial and Provod, where the adversarial U-M relations in the past do not seem to encourage any active commitment on the part of the management to dancing, which would have been preferred by the union representatives. The management at these factories thus was relying on traditional management styles. However, the active confrontation between the union and management at the smaller unit of Himstroy seemingly paved the way for the management’s ideological engagement in partnership at the company’s larger unit.

The host-country orientation of Nordic management becomes even more evident when we look into the identity dimension of boxing at the researched factories. Unions’ role as the defender of workers’ rights is largely neglected by the managers and trade union representatives alike, while only at one unit did the boxing stance prevail but was actively being marginalized by management. The unions at each plant were weak, thus allowing little policy space for a wider scope for dancing, and this state of affairs was implicitly accepted by the Nordic employers. As already noted in connection with the larger unit of Himstroy, the management introduced partnership measures only as a less disadvantageous alternative to the militant trade unionism at the smaller unit. Thus, ‘hybridization at the source’, found in German multinational enterprises in Hungary (Dörrenbächeret al., 2003: 37) and Nordic subsidiaries in the Baltic states (Sippola, 2009), might be the most appropriate term to describe the management style of the Nordic employer.

As regards the final research question, whether real model transfer occurs from Nordic headquarters to Russian subsidiaries, we can conclude that while there are some characteristics of the ‘home-country effect’ and ‘host-country effect’ in the adaption of either dancing or boxing, the hybridization approach to multinationals’ model transfer remains the dominant pattern. Although the point of departure for full manifestation of the Nordic dancing practices is not even anticipated, the lame introduction of the partnership schemes provides strong support for the hybridization argument in the sense of avoiding the home-country standards.

Conclusion

In sum, the U-M relationship at the researched factories appears to be characterized by either antagonism or partnership, or an uneasy mix of both, but not by any means by a healthy combination of the two, which is a characteristic of the Nordic model (Huzzardet al., 2004). Therefore, the notion of Nordic model transfer did not gain ground on the basis of this study. The researched cases indicate that the Russian legislative and IR climatic conditions – mainly due to the complicated legacy of Soviet trade unionism – do not seem to support the mutually reinforcing dialectic between boxing and dancing. In the Russian context, the inherent weakness of the labour movement seems to serve as an obstacle for such a constructive combination. The changed regulative framework, manifested in the 2002 Labour Code, further exacerbates the challenges for unions to act on the workplace level.

In a way, the Russian enterprise unions can afford only ‘bouts of boxing’, which do not rock the balance of power (Gough and Ogden, 2008: 55). In other words, strategic room for manoeuvre is small, while only tactical boxing moves are available. Apparently, the only way ahead for the workplace unions appears to be to take the initiative in social partnership away from the employer and try to transform the IR agenda according to their own preferences. In that way, it would become possible to gain legitimacy that will help in boxing situations that inevitably will arise, which in turn would enlarge the policy space within which the enterprise unions are operating.

Also, engaging in international cooperation would make sense for the Russian enterprise unions. For example, Swedish unions are seeking opportunities for greater influence internationally (Huzzard and Nilsson, 2004: 90). Russian–Nordic cooperation at the union representative level has been very modest so far. An indication of this was that only one union out of the four case study companies had cooperation with a Nordic-country trade union. However, the valuable experience the Nordic unionists have in both boxing and dancing (Huzzard and Nilsson, 2004; Rolfsen, 2011; Sippola, 2012) would provide a framework for their Russian counterparts of how these two ways of action can be intertwined positively.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Funding Sources Kulttuurin ja Yhteiskunnan Tutkimuksen Toimikunta, (Grant / Award Number: 138083).

Notes

Author biography

Markku Sippola is a university lecturer at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Tampere, Finland. His research interests revolve around industrial relations, labour migration and labour processes in the Baltic, Nordic and Russian contexts. His articles have been published in Employee Relations, European Journal of Industrial Relations, Journal of Baltic Studies and Work, Employment and Society.

References

Ackers

Marchington

Wilkinson

Dundon

(2005) Partnership and voice, with or without trade unions: Changing UK management approaches to organisational participation. In: Stuart

Martinez Lucio

(eds) Partnership and Modernisation in Employment Relations. London: Routledge, pp. 23–45.

Ashwin

(2004) Social partnership or a ‘complete sellout’? Russian trade unions’ responses to conflict. British Journal of Industrial Relations 42(1): 23–46.

Ashwin

(2007) Russian trade unions: Stuck in Soviet-style subordination? In: Phelan

(ed.) Trade Union Revitalisation: Trends and Prospects in 34 Countries. Oxford: Peter Lang, pp. 319–333.

Bluhm

(2001) Exporting or abandoning the German model? Labor policies of German manufacturing firms in Central Europe. European Journal of Industrial Relations 7(2): 153–173.

Broughton

(2005) European comparative practice in information and consultation. In: Storey

(ed.) Adding Value through Information and Consultation. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 200–218.

Clarke

(2005) Post-socialist trade unions: China and Russia. Industrial Relations Journal 36(1): 2–18.

Claydon

(1998) Problematising partnership: The prospects for a co-operative bargaining agenda. In: Sparrow

Marchington

(eds) Human Resource Management: The New Agenda. London: Financial Times/Pitman.

Coe

Jordhus-Lier

(2011) Constrained agency? Re-evaluating the geographies of labour. Progress in Human Geography 35(2): 211–233.

Crowley

(2004) Explaining labor weakness in post-communist Europe: Historical legacies and comparative perspective. East European Politics and Societies 18(3): 394–429.

10.

Davis

(2006) Russian trade unions: Where are they in the former workers’ state? In: Evans

Jr Henry

McIntosh Sundstrom

(eds) Russian Civil Society: A Critical Assessment. Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe, pp. 197–210.

11.

Dörrenbächer

(2002) National business systems and the international transfer of industrial models in multinational corporations: Some remarks on heterogeneity. WZB Discussion Paper, No. FS I 02–102.

12.

Dörrenbächer

Fichter

Neumann

Tóth

(2003) Exogenous influences in path-dependent transformation processes: The effects of German foreign direct investment on work organization and labor relations in Hungary. VW-Projekt Report AZ: 75842.

13.

Edwards

Marginson

Ferner

(2013) Multinational companies in cross-national context: Integration, differentiation, and the interactions between MNCs and nation states. Industrial and Labor Relations Review 66(3): 547–587.

14.

Elfstrom

Kuruvilla

(2014) The changing nature of labor unrest in China. Industrial and Labor Relations Review 67(2): 453–480.

15.

Elvander

(2002) The labour market regimes in the Nordic countries: A comparative analysis. Scandinavian Political Studies 25(2): 117–137.

16.

Fichter

(2003) Internationalization of production: Options and responses. AICGS/Daimler-Chrysler Working Paper Series, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD.

17.

Folkersma

(2009) Venäjä, työmarkkinat ja palkansaajat [Russia, labour market and wage earners]. A report for AKAVA (The Confederation of Unions for Professional and Managerial Staff in Finland).

18.

Gall

(2001) From adversarialism to partnership? Trade unionism and industrial relations in the banking sector in the UK. Employee Relations 23(4): 353–375.

19.

Gough

Ogden

(2008) Partnership, bargaining and production in ‘liberal market’ and ‘co-ordinated market’ economies. In: Marshall

Mitchell

Ramsay

(eds) Varieties of Capitalism, Corporate Governance and Employees. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, pp. 39–59.

20.

Huzzard

(2004a) Boxing and dancing – Trade union strategic choices. In: Huzzard

Gregory

Scott

(eds) Strategic Unionism and Partnership: Boxing or Dancing ? London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 20–44.

21.

Huzzard

(2004b) Dance, dance, wherever you may be? Partnership in comparative perspective. In: Huzzard

Gregory

Scott

(eds) Strategic Unionism and Partnership: Boxing or Dancing ? London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 217–236.

22.

Huzzard

Nilsson

(2004) Dancing queen? Partnership, codetermination and strategic unionism in Sweden. In: Huzzard

Gregory

Scott

(eds) Strategic Unionism and Partnership: Boxing or Dancing ? London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 86–106.

23.

Huzzard

Gregory

Scott

(eds) (2004) Strategic Unionism and Partnership: Boxing or Dancing ? London: Palgrave Macmillan.

24.

Jeffries

(1996) Strategic choice for unions in France and Britain: Divergent institutions with converging opinions. In: Leisink

Van Leemput

Vilrokx

(eds) The Challenges to Trade Unions in Europe. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

25.

Jensen

(2002) Denmark in historical perspective: Towards conflict-based consensus. In: Berger

Compston

(eds) Policy Concertation and Social Partnership in Western Europe: Lessons for the 21st Century. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 77–82.

26.

Johnstone

(2015) The case for workplace partnership. In: Johnstone

Ackers

(eds) Finding a Voice at Work? Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 153–174.

27.

Katz

Kochan

(2000) An Introduction to Collective Bargaining and Industrial Relations, 2nd edn. New York: McGraw-Hill.

28.

Kelly

(1998) Rethinking Industrial Relation: Mobilization, Collectivism and Long Waves. London and New York: Routledge.

29.

King

(1994) The qualitative research interview. In: Cassell

Symon

(eds) Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research: A Practical Guide. London: Sage, pp. 14–36.

30.

King

(2004) Using interviews in qualitative research. In: Cassell

Symon

(eds) Essential Guide to Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research. London: Sage, pp. 11–22.

31.

Kitay

Callus

(1998) The role and challenge of case study design in industrial relations research. In: Whitfield

Strauss

(eds) Researching the World of Work: Strategies and Methods in Studying Industrial Relations. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press, pp. 101–111.

32.

Kitay

Marchington

(1996) A review and critique of workplace industrial relations typologies. Human Relations 49(10): 1263–1290.

33.

Kozina

(2009) Corporations and trade unions – a Russian variant. Mir Rossii 1(2009): 144–163 (in Russian).

34.

Kvinge

Ulrichsen

(2008) Do Norwegian companies’ direct investments in Poland imply exports of labour relations? Economic and Industrial Democracy 29(1): 125–155.

35.

Lamare

Gunnigle

Marginson

Murray

(2013) Union status and double-breasting at multinational companies in three liberal market economies. Industrial and Labor Relations Review 66(3): 696–722.

36.

Mailand

Due

(2004) Social dialogue in Central and Eastern Europe: Present state and future development. European Journal of Industrial Relations 10(2): 179–197.

37.

Martinez Lucio

Stuart

(2005) ‘Partnership’ and new industrial relations in a risk society: An age of shotgun weddings and marriages of convenience? Work, Employment and Society 19(4): 797–817.

38.

Martinez Lucio

Weston

(1992) Swimming against the tide: Social partnership, mutual gains and the revival of ‘tired’ HRM. International Journal of Human Resource Management 15(2): 410–424.

39.

Meardi

(2007) Multinationals in the new EU member states and the revitalisation of trade unions. Debatte 15(2): 177–193.

40.

Meardi

Marginson

Fichter

, et al. (2009) Varieties of multinationals: Adapting employment practices in Central Eastern Europe. Industrial Relations 48(3): 489–511.

41.

Morrison

Croucher

(2010) Moldovan employment relations: ‘Path dependency’? Employee Relations 32(3): 227–247.

42.

Olimpieva

(2011) ‘Free’ and ‘official’ labor unions in Russia: Different modes of labor interest representation. Russian Analytical Digest 104 (27 October): 2–5.

43.

Olimpieva

(2012) Labor unions in contemporary Russia: An assessment of contrasting forms of organization and representation. Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society 15: 267–283.

44.

Olimpieva

Orttung

(2012) Russian unions’ political ambitions after the elections. PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 197. Available at: www.ponarseurasia.org/sites/default/files/policy-memos-pdf/pepm197.pdf.

45.

Pollert

(1999) Trade unionism in transition in Central and Eastern European countries. European Journal of Industrial Relations 5(2): 209–234.

46.

Rolfsen

(2011) How close can we dance? Labour–management partnership on a borderline. Economic and Industrial Democracy 32(4): 591–608.

47.

Sippola

(2009) The two faces of Nordic management? Nordic firms and their employee relations in the Baltic states. International Journal of Human Resource Management 20(9): 1929–1944.

48.

Sippola

(2011) Nordic subsidiaries in the Baltic states: Is model transfer possible? Employee Relations 33(4): 356–374.

49.

Sippola

(2012) Local bargaining and codetermination: Finnish experience in comparative perspective. European Journal of Industrial Relations 18(1): 53–69.

50.

Stake

(1995) The Art of Case Study Research. London: Sage.

51.

Stuart

Martinez Lucio

(eds) (2005) Partnership and Modernisation in Employment Relations. Abingdon: Routledge.

52.

Sznajder Lee

Trappmann

(2014) Overcoming post-communist labour weakness: Attritional and enabling effects of multinationals in Central and Eastern Europe. European Journal of Industrial Relations 20(2): 113–129.

53.

Trif

Koch

(2004) Romania: Learning to dance. In: Huzzard

Gregory

Scott

(eds) Strategic Unionism and Partnership: Boxing or Dancing? London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 179–198.

54.

Varga

(2013) Refocusing studies of post-communist trade unions. European Journal of Industrial Relations 19(2): 109–125.

55.

Weiss

(2012) Increasing number of strikes in Russia. World Socialist Website, 12 June. Available at: www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/06/russ-j12.html.

56.

Wilkinson

Dundon

Townsend

Donaghey

(2014) Partnership, collaboration and mutual gains: Evaluating context, interests and legitimacy. International Journal of Human Resource Management 25(6): 737–747.