001047 McDonald's Russian Workers Seek Union

Moscow - The struggle by some workers to unionize at McDonald's Corp.'s food production plant outside Moscow could hinge on a court ruling.

Yevgeny Druzhinin, a forklift operator at the “McComplex” facility since 1992, brought the suit to challenge the company's latest reprimand in what he says is a string of warnings designed to punish him for union activity.

Druzhinin's case focused on McDonald's refusal to recognize the union. Russia's labor laws say as few as three employees can form a union, and they guarantee an elected member of a union's ruling body, such as Druzhinin, cannot be punished or fired without union permission.

McDonald's, which has successfully kept unions out of its U.S. restaurants, contends it is abiding by Russia's laws and argues Druzhinin's group is not a properly constituted union.

The fight has grabbed the attention of international labor groups, the Moscow city government and the Russian parliament, and some experts say it could tarnish the image of McDonald's highly successful operation in Russia.

Druzhinin says that before he joined the fledgling union last year, he was praised by managers as one of the best workers at the McComplex. Since then, he says, he has been hit with a series of warnings for such things as showing up at work drunk and ruining equipment, accusations he says were fabricated to punish him for union activity.

“Once I joined the union, the administration just started attacking me,” Druzhinin said.

McDonald's executives and lawyers have refused to comment on his case before the judges issue a ruling.

Druzhinin and others claim the company has pressured them to drop the small union, which includes just 18 of the plant's 400 workers. They say they have been isolated from other employees and allege McDonald's has punished them with inconvenient work hours and shorter breaks.

McDonald's says it would gladly negotiate with a union, but contends Druzhinin's group doesn't have any official status.

Druzhinin says that is absurd. Natalya Gracheva, a security guard at the plant for a decade, founded the union when pay and work hours slid after Russia's 1998 economic crash, and the union contends it is officially registered.

The group's members concede that McDonald's employees do relatively well compared to other Russian workers. Their monthly earnings of around $100 is above the national average of roughly $82.

But they lag McDonald's employees in many other countries. The Russian workers earn about 15 rubles an hour, enough to buy one Big Mac every two hours. McDonald's employees in Germany make three times as much.

The company's Moscow operation says the overwhelming majority of employees at the McComplex oppose unionization. But it has promised to negotiate if a union “fulfills the legal requirements for negotiating on their own behalf,” the company said in a statement.

Russian unions and international labor groups have complained to the Moscow city government, which owns 20% of the McDonald's operation in Moscow.

“We have a pretty long history of confrontation with McDonald's,” said Kirill Buketov, Moscow representative for the International Union of Food Workers. “Their tactic hasn't changed throughout the world and they're dragging out the process to exert more pressure on the union workers.”

A parliamentary commission has decided to investigate whether the fast-food giant has violated Russian labor laws. Its chairman, Andrei Isayev, said if the panel found any violations it could then recommend that the company be tried in court.

“All foreign investors know there are Russian laws that they must follow, and we won't do anything except require them to follow those laws,” Isayev said.

McDonald's is one of Russia's major international investors and a popular institution that ordinary Russians have embraced. There are 58 McDonald's restaurants in the country, and the outlet in downtown Moscow is the company's busiest in the world.

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