Underground waterlines: Explaining political quiescence of Ukrainian labor unions

Denys Gorbach (1)

1 CEE - Centre d'études européennes et de politique comparée (Sciences Po, CNRS)

In order to explore factors conditioning the political quietude of Ukrainian labor, this article analyzes ethnographic data collected at two large enterprises: the Kyiv Metro and the privatized electricity supplier Kyivenergo. Focusing on a recent labor conflict, I unpack various contexts condensed in it. I analyze the hegemonic configuration developed in the early 1990s, at the workplace and at the macro level, and follow its later erosion. This configuration has been based on labor hoarding, distribution of nonwage resources, and patronage networks, featuring the foreman as the nodal figure. On the macro scale, it relied on the mediation by unions, supported by resources accumulated during the Soviet era and the economic boom of the 2000s. The depletion of these resources has spelled the ongoing crisis of this configuration.

Mots clés: accumulation regimes; labor militancy; labor unions; post-socialism; Ukraine; workplace hegemony

Domaines: Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie; Science politique; Sociologie

Denys Gorbach. Underground waterlines: Explaining political quiescence of Ukrainian labor unions. Focaal — Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology, 2019, 2019 (84), pp.33 - 46. ⟨10.3167/fcl.of.2019.032103⟩. ⟨hal-02282463⟩