The United Kingdom's new Labour government lifted the 14-year ban on trade unions at the intelligence-gathering centre, GCHQ. The workers who had been sacked for refusing to give up their union membership were reinstated in what was a triumph for them, and for the TUC.

But all the other anti-union laws introduced under the previous Conservative government remained on the statute books.

The Belgian unions still faced a problem getting a fair hearing in the courts over the right to strike, but there were some signs of the judges moving to defend the collective rights of workers rather than the individual rights of employers. In Norway the Supreme Court disregarded ILO jurisprudence on the right to strike ruling that a government decree banning strikes in the oil industry and imposing compulsory arbitration was valid. In Germany the government has ignored ILO criticisms since 1959 by refusing to allow public servants who have civil service status to go on strike.

In Central and Eastern Europe, the transition had its ups and downs. Some improvements came about in practising tripartism - but much is still to be done in defending rights at enterprise level. In Serbia things only went downhill - with a sharp decline in the province of Kosovo where Serbia harshly represses the Albanian population.

In the CIS, the government of Belarus kept its ignominious status as the outstanding violator of the region. International trade union pressure made an impact at the end of a year in which the government responded to union actions to gain legal status and defend their members with a wave of repression that included a heavy-handed attempt to boost the former official union.

Non-payment of wages was still a huge problem in Russia and many other countries in both the CIS and Central and Eastern Europe. Three-quarters of Russia's workers had not been paid for months, some for longer than a year. Workers - not unnaturally - reacted by downing tools; Russia's constitutional court ruled that payment of company taxes had equal priority with wage payments - in practice this meant that taxes took priority - thereby making things worse.

On 11 January, 1997, the Ministry of Justice told the BCDTU union centre it was refusing its application for registration because one of its founding unions, the Free Trade Union of Belarus (SPB), had been dissolved by a 1995 presidential decree.

The Ministry of Justice disregarded the fact that it had re-registered the SPB in February, 1996.

Presidential Decree 336 of September, 1995, issued after a strike in the Minsk metro, suspended all SPB activities, and those of the Minsk metro branch of the former official union, the FPB. President Lukashenko issued a legal order confirming the decree in December, 1995 - defying a court ruling that the decree was unconstitutional.

The decree meant that the SPB could not sign collective agreements or collect union dues, and was not entitled to office space or meeting facilities in enterprises.

The decree also banned unions taking part in strikes at enterprises listed in Legal Order 158. Issued in March, 1995, the order prohibited strikes in the Minsk metro and other transport services, including railways; radio and television; air traffic control; telecommunications, and the petroleum, chemical, and food industries. The law already required unions to give 56 days notice before a strike.

Decree 336 added to the obstacles blocking independent trade unions. In many cases, enterprise directors paid SPB union dues to the former official union. SPB members were paid lower salaries, and threatened with dismissal. Employers refused to negotiate with them. The FPB still controlled social functions usually performed by the state.

A 1993 collective bargaining law had restricted the bargaining rights of independent unions. It allowed enterprise management to negotiate local agreements with the workers' collective, unless the union represented at least half of the workforce.

Trade union registration procedures remained arbitrary, complex and expensive.

At the beginning of February, 1997, the president and executive director of the BCDTU met the Minister of Justice over his refusal to register the national centre. In spite of their insistence that only the Supreme Court could change laws on the registration of organisations, the Minister would not budge.

On 11 February, the BCDTU began to picket the Ministry in protest. It extended the picket to the presidential palace and the parliament building.

On 25 February, ten members of the picket, including Pavel Moyseyevitch, chairman of the free metalworkers' union, Maria Aliyeva, acting chairwoman of the SPB, and BCDTU president Gennady Bykov were briefly detained and fined the equivalent of a day's pay after the picket had finished for the day. Two other union leaders received warnings, and the mayor banned the picket.

On 21 May the Ministry of Justice officially notified the BCDTU in writing that it would not be registered. The BCDTU appealed against the decision. In July, the Supreme Court ruled against the appeal because it said the complaint had been presented by people without a proper mandate.

In September, a draft presidential decree was issued providing for dismissals without consultations with trade unions and penalties for infringements of labour discipline.

On 16 December, President Lukashenko issued Decree No. 639 on guidelines for the state's policy on trade unions.

Decree No. 639 specifically mentioned the FPB, including by mandating it to draw up guidelines for adoption by the National Assembly on the implementation of the Decree. This included the establishment of criteria on union representation at branch, national, regional and local levels. The Decree thus restored the old trade union privileges to the FPB.

Only after the introduction of Decree No. 639, and because of international pressure, were the SPB and BCDTU registered, on 19 December. Decree No. 336 was not cancelled.

The BCDTU feared that although it had been registered, the introduction of high numeric criteria for union recognition would mean its continued exclusion from collective bargaining. Proposals made by the FPB in October for draft criteria for the recognition of union structures at branch, local, regional and national levels, had included the requirement that a national centre would have to have at least 450,000 members, and in effect excluded independent trade unions from collective bargaining. Unions not reaching the required figure would only be involved in collective bargaining if they represented at least a third of the workers in an enterprise.

The government also drew up a new bill on minimum services in essential industries, which revoked the list of enterprises and services in which strikes were banned in Legal Order 158.

Leaders of the independent trade unions continued to be victimised and harassed throughout the year.

On 30 April, three carloads of policemen attacked members of the independent miners' union as they took a break during a cycle race from Soligorsk to Minsk to celebrate May Day. When the cycle race continued, it was stopped again and the participants were taken to the police station.

On 28 July, the director of the Tsvetotron plant in Brest banned the chairman of the local SPB branch, V. Maley, from the plant and ordered the union's premises to be closed and the telephone line cut. The union had held a warning strike on 16 July over non-payment of wages, the delayed transfer of union dues and management refusal to sign a collective agreement. Maley was also detained and taken to the police station for distributing a union newspaper to members.

Independent union leader Victor Elfimov was banned from entering the Gomel Radio-electronics plant to meet union members.

In August, two years after the strike at Minsk metro, the management were still refusing to bargain with the union. The independent transport workers' union said that management refused to transfer union dues to the union despite applications signed by union members.

The BCDTU President Gennady Bykov, and union leader Serguey Obodovsky were taken to court and fined for union activities. The court seized their property to pay the fine.

On 13 October, independent union leader Michael Marinich was fined the equivalent of a year's pay, for organising a union meeting in violation of Presidential Decree No. 5 restricting street assemblies.

In December, the Minsk metro union said it was banned from holding union meetings on the premises, even outside working hours, and its members were being persecuted. Three unionists went on hunger strike.

On 22 December, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, ordered the Soligorsk office of the independent trade union to present all the financial documents of the union for inspection. The union refused. On 30 December, the police searched the home of the secretary-treasurer of the branch and seized the documents.

The Supreme court refused to order the reinstatement of the illegally dismissed Vladimir Odynets, chairman of a local branch of the SPB, and said that the decision was not subject to appeal. Court procedures for the reinstatement had taken over three years.

Some employers took disputes to the civil courts instead of labour courts by alleging violence during strikes and pickets. The courts often ruled in the employers' favour without giving a hearing to the unions. In some cases, unions were threatened with massive fines if they continued to strike or picket.

On the unions' initiative, however, certain judges who had earlier followed the employers' reasoning, reviewed their decisions and upheld the union position, favouring collective rights over individual rights (such as ownership, free circulation of persons and goods) which had been defended by employers.

A new draft law was submitted to parliament to remedy the legal confusion. Previous parliamentary bills drawn up to address the issue have come to nothing.

The Podkrepa and KNSB union centres held strikes and rallies throughout the year to protest at the government's policies which they said had brought Bulgaria to the brink of economic and social collapse.

The programme had resulted in the closure of 64 major public enterprises and the denial of credits to 70 others. Around 50,000 workers lost their jobs. Prices rose dramatically and the banking system collapsed. Only half the amounts which had been in bank accounts could be recovered, virtually paralysing the activities of some union federations.

In January, 1997, unions and other sectors of society held demonstrations in the capital, Sofia, as well as other towns and cities, calling for a general election. Unions called a series of one-hour strikes around the country. Security forces attacked rallies on 10 January, injuring over 100 people.

On 29 January, the KNSB and Podkrepa announced a general strike which continued until 4 February when elections were announced for April.

The outgoing government had agreed to co-opt several unrepresentative unions onto the tripartite council. In April, although the new government agreed with the suggestion of the KNSB and Podkrepa that an inventory of trade union membership should be carried out to establish which unions were properly representative, nothing was done. There was no social dialogue during 1997 and the Tripartite Council did not function.

Amendments to the labour code in 1996 strengthened collective bargaining and brought procedures more into line with ILO standards. A union no longer needed to acquire the status of "national representation" to bargain at plant level.

Labour law prohibits strikes in the public health, energy, communications, and water supply sectors. Trade unions cannot take part in political activities, and can be dissolved if they promote political aims.

Unions again said that employers ignored labour laws at all levels and violated collective agreements. Many workers were being sacked illegally and the authorities failed to enforce the labour laws. There was a backlog of cases in the labour courts.

In November, the KNSB and Podkrepa said they had a list of some 246 mainly foreign-owned enterprises who were taking advantage of the economic crisis to exploit workers and violate the labour code.

Some workers, particularly in the textile sector in the Sandanski region, had no employment contracts, and were working 12-14 hours a day, sometimes on Saturday and Sunday as well. One company had made its workers work for 30 hours with two breaks. Workers were denied medical leave and sacked if they tried to form a union. They were humiliated and abused by management.

In February, a branch union of Podkrepa was formed at the Italian-owned Euroshoes Ltd. in Doupnitza. Management started to intimidate union members by calling them individually and threatening to sack them. The union president was transferred and isolated. After forcing most workers to leave the union, the management did not renew the three-monthly employment contracts of the remaining union members.

Workers at the Chaika enterprise in Plovdiv, which makes leather bags for export, found themselves in court for an illegal strike when they stopped work in November after their wages were reduced. The management refused to recognise the two unions in the company and would not talk to them. They illegally tried to stop workers entering the premises where they were striking.

The Stomana company in Siliatra took workers to court in 1997 for going on a one-hour warning strike after the company ignored a labour court ruling to reinstate Konstantin Kristov Kostov, a union official suspended in 1996. The union had asked to begin collective negotiations with management who refused to supply them with the information required to start bargaining.

The government also attempted to weaken and split the democratic union movement and used the state-owned media to this end. A government minister appealed to workers not to trust trade unionists and called on workers not to pay union dues.

In April, the latest draft of a bill on associations first published in 1996, was set to have its final reading in parliament. It violated a 1993 agreement on distributing the assets of the former state-controlled unions.

While the draft said that it did not apply to trade unions, it gave them six months to distribute the assets by themselves. Failing agreement, the assets would become government property. Parliament could then distribute them a year after it established proper criteria. There was no time limit for parliament to establish the criteria.

In May, after mediation from the ILO, a temporary agreement, valid for one year, was reached on establishing the Economic and Social Council and the holding of social elections to determine which unions were the most representative. The UATUC union centre, which holds 50% of union property, asked the government to delay the law on union assets until after the elections.

On 18 June, the law on associations was adopted despite the fact that the UATUC had asked for unions to be excluded from the bill and had made proposals for the distribution of assets. It took the case to the constitutional court.

The government also introduced a restrictive bill on gatherings and public protests which had passed its first reading in parliament. It gave the police wide powers to postpone and ban gatherings. The UATUC said the bill applied to union gatherings and strikes and to indoor gatherings in some circumstances. After widespread opposition, it was withdrawn.

In September, the UATUC launched a campaign on various economic and social issues including non-payment of wages, the bill on gatherings, a draft pensions law, high rate of VAT and other issues.

Non-payment of wages became an increasing problem. Arrears affected about 14 per cent of workers and were for periods of between one and forty months. Strikes over non-payment of wages are illegal. Although employees could be taken to court in some instances, cases could take years.

The UATUC initiated the introduction of a bill amending the labour law which would allow strikes if employers did not observe provisions of collective agreements and if workers were not paid within 45 days after the last day of the month. It came to nothing.

UATUC continued to protest over the government's refusal to register the pensioners' trade union in 1996.

Collective bargaining is not encouraged at all and the law is not clear on how trade unions qualify as bargaining agents. Employers can evade collective agreements by establishing company unions who refuse to participate in joint union negotiations with employers. A Supreme Court decision of 1995 stated that the law can modify the substance of a collective agreement concluded for the whole public sector.

Strikes have frequently been banned by the Supreme Court, which narrowly interpreted the scope of issues over which strikes could be held. The court ruled that a strike was illegal if it was over the exercise of rights already defined in law, or a collective agreement. Unions could face damages and workers the sack for taking part in an illegal strike. In 1997, strikes were banned at Plobest in Ploce, and Celik in Krizevci.

There are no labour courts. Croatia's courts were overburdened with thousands of cases, mostly against employers who refused to bargain, ignored provisions of collective agreements, or sacked workers illegally. Cases took up to five years. Court cases against employers for violating provisions of the labour law have been rejected on the basis that employers are not legally liable for petty offences.

The UATUC said that it was common for employers to refuse to deduct union dues at source even though this was provided for in collective agreements and was common practice. This happened at the large, partially-privatised company, Voce-Export-Import in Zagreb, and the Cazmatrans transport Company in Bjelovar.

In the Viroviticko-Podravska region, the UATUC went to court after its regional branch said that employers at Ratarstvo in Slatina, Ratarstvo in Visnijica, uzor IMKO in Slatina, and UKUS in Virovitica and Klasje, Slatina, had transferred union dues deducted from salaries into their own account.

UATUC said hundreds of its members were sacked or transferred during the year. Marijan Ljubic at the Mednika company in Zupanja was sacked for union activities; Mirjana Tadic, shop steward at Banija in Zagreb was sacked after receiving a document banning union activity; Mira Bunjevac was fired because she was a shop steward at Dalmex in Split.

Also fired were: Jadranko Bozim at the Sirovina company in Zadar, Bozidar Ticic at Croatia Zadar-line in Zadar, Zeljko Radosevic at Teksil d.d. in Karlovac, and Slavko Milesic at VAMA d.d. in Varazdin.

One shop steward was sacked at Konzum in Zagreb, and two were transferred to lower paid jobs. Others resigned after constant harassment. At the same company, a shop steward, Marijan Marsic, was thrown off the premises by a bodyguard after a work stoppage, and fired. He was reinstated after union pressure.

The CHROMOS-boje i lakovi d.d. company in Zagreb established a company-controlled employees' council and made it impossible for the legally-elected council to function.

The president of the Croatian Association of Employers banned unions from his own company, the Jakopec Meat Industry. The Kovinoinstalacija and Jatra companies in Split banned their employees from joining a union and said they would be sacked if they did. Although the workers have secretly joined, there is no union structure in the company.

Dragutin Smerda of the metalworkers' union was sacked and banned from entering company premises after the union at Plamen-International in Pozega held a union meeting that had been prohibited by the management.

There were many examples of employers promoting certain trade unions. The EKN union in the power and chemical industry said that employers in many enterprises pursued anti-union policies including at Kemika in Zagreb, Karbon in Zagreb, and Meplast in Cakovec. At Labud in Zagreb the employer favoured another trade union and threatened to sack EKN members unless they transferred to that union. The EKN shop-steward had been sacked in 1996 and a legal dispute over this continued. He was not able to perform union duties.

The STH commercial union said that the management of the Jadrantekstil company in Split rented out the Prima department store to another employer who threatened to sack the workers unless they joined another union. A shop-steward was transferred to another shop several hours away.

Preparatory work on a new labour code began in September. The CMKOS wanted a new code - the current code dates from 1965 and has been amended 19 times - and unions and employers were invited to participate in working groups with the government. But there were no clear indications as to the aims of the code, or even how it would be drafted, although the Ministry of Labour said that the legislation would be ready for adoption in 1999.

In October, the government submitted a draft constitutional act to parliament on emergency regulations to deal with threats to national security. The CMKOS strongly opposed the act. It allowed the government to proclaim a state of emergency in very broadly defined situations and to ban strikes that threatened "disturbances of the normal course of the economy" without parliamentary approval. The draft was being discussed in parliamentary committees and was expected to be finalised in February 1998.

An act on customs officers was adopted in April making their terms of employment subject to the laws governing police employment. It banned the right to strike and restricted other trade unions rights for all employees in the custom services, including administrative and technical staff. And it stipulated that at least 40 per cent of the staff in each customs unit had to be union members to bargain collectively.

It was reported that the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs was still working on a redraft of the anti-union bill on state employees, first introduced into parliament by the government in 1993. It had been officially withdrawn from the government's agenda in 1996. The original bill restricted the trade union rights of over 60,000 public servants.

Collective bargaining remained a major problem. Some employers refused to bargain or used obstructive tactics to prevent collective agreements being concluded. As in the past, employers and the authorities particularly discouraged industry-wide bargaining and CMKOS said that the number of employees covered by agreements continued to fall.

Despite the efforts of CMKOS to promote bargaining at industry and branch level, only 30 branch collective agreements were concluded, covering 18% of employees. Three branch unions were unable to conclude an agreement. Public servants cannot bargain on a sectoral basis.

It was reported that some employers, including some foreign companies, continued to discourage workers from joining unions and inserted clauses in employment contracts banning union membership. It was however difficult to prove clearly that trade union rights were being violated because of the growing unemployment in the country. This made employees afraid of losing their jobs and fearful of asserting their employment rights.

On 3-4 February, the OSZ union of railway workers staged a 48-hour strike to protest at ill-conceived restructuring plans that would have led to job losses. The railway management tried to bring in non-union labour and the strike continued on 5 February, owing to the failure of negotiations. The Prague municipal court issued an injunction against the strike on the grounds that it was not over collective bargaining. (Only strikes related to collective bargaining are allowed.) The dispute ended three days later when agreement was reached through tripartite negotiations.

Immediately after the strike, the Ministry of Labour issued a document outlining plans to introduce a new law to regulate strikes other than those related to collective bargaining. The draft law was made public in March. The CMKOS said the law would widen the definition of designated essential sectors where minimum services had to be maintained during disputes, and would give the state the power to decide what the level of minimum services was. The authorities would be able to make a one-time emergency decision to postpone a strike for a maximum of 60 days. The law also would delete a provision of another law prohibiting conscription of trade union officers for military exercises, compulsory military service, or performance of civil service, during strikes or strike stand-by.

After strong protests by CMKOS the government withdrew the draft law. It was not submitted to parliament. The Ministry of Labour said it intended to include the regulation of strikes other than those related to collective bargaining in the new labour code.

In enterprises with less than 50 workers, unions can be set-up but there are no facilities to allow the effective exercise of this right, such as time entitlement for union activities, office space etc. While enterprises with less than 50 workers are not entitled to have a union delegate, a staff delegate can be elected if there are more than 11 workers, but the delegate is not entitled to time for union activities.

Courts interpret the use of a union delegate’s time allowance in a restrictive way. Legal jurisprudence is restrictive on the mandate of a union delegate or a staff delegate. This opens the way for employers to contest the use of the time allowance. Judges don’t punish employers for repeated challenges to the use of this time, even though it contributes to harassment of a trade unionist.

Although authorisation from the labour authorities is required to sack a staff representative, the authorisation rate is quite high. Appeals against decisions are lengthy and costly and even if authorisation for dismissal is turned over by a higher court, the lengthy time lapse rules out the possibility of a sacked staff representative being reinstated.

Although discrimination against trade unionists is prohibited, it is difficult to prove, and easily allows employers to discourage union delegates or potential delegates from pursuing union activities by limiting or blocking their career and salary.

The ILO has been criticizing this restriction since 1959. It has asked the government to ensure the full implementation of the rights recognized by Convention No. 87, including the right to strike. The ILO has also asked the government to ensure that teachers with civil service status have the right to bargain collectively.

The regime introduced systematic discrimination against Albanians who make up 90 per cent of Kosovo's population. The Serbian parliament passed over 36 discriminatory laws and 470 emergency legal orders.

A 1990 law authorised mass dismissals of Albanians from civil service, teaching and other jobs. Over 150,000 people lost their jobs, leaving just 40,000 Albanians in work out of a population of some two million. Sacked workers often lost their homes as well and were replaced in their jobs and homes by Serbs and Montenegrins, and more recently, Serbs from Krajina.

The Serbian administration and its security forces continued to persecute leaders and members of the provinces' independent trade union the BSPK, which was registered in 1991. The BSPK cannot hold meetings in enterprises and institutions, nor can it initiate or sign collective agreements. Its leaders have been denied visas to attend international trade union meetings and have had their passports taken away.

Most BSPK members have lost their jobs and their families have no social and health care protection. Many have left the country.

On 13 May, Serbian security forces took away the passport of Nexhmedin Shaqiri, the international officer of the BSPK union in the leather and textile sector, before he went to a meeting of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) textile, clothing and leather sector, in Portugal. He was detained and interrogated on 20 June about the meeting.

The police detained and interrogated several BSPK leaders immediately after the seventh BSPK Assembly held on 18 May: Behxhet Rushiti, chairman of the BSPK co-ordinating council and Haxhi Arifi, chairman of the agricultural workers' union. On 20 May, the police interrogated Esat Loshaj, chairman of the commerce and tourism union, Deme Loxha, chairman of the forestry union, Beke Zeka, the delegate from the craft and small business union assembly, Mehdi Uka, the delegate from the miners' union, and Ismet Leka, a union activist from Gjakove.

On 29 May, police interrogated the chairman of the energy union, Sherif Fejzullahu. On 16 June, security officials detained and interrogated Xhylbehar Ejupi, the president of the textile union, after he returned from the ETUC textile meeting. He was threatened with arrest.

Other workers were evicted from their homes. The flats of Enver Aliu from Mitrovice, Hysni Kryeziu from Prizren, and Shaban Dreshaj, from Prishtina who worked in the Nutrition factory in Fushe-Kosove, were given to Serbians. Fahredin Shabani from Prizren and Xhevrije Krasniqi, a worker at the Kosovka textile factory in Prishtina were also kicked out of their homes.

The SBASHK teachers' union said the authorities continued to persecute Albanian teachers as part of a campaign to stamp out teaching in the Albanian language. The union said that sporadic arrests of teachers and violence against them was endemic. In December, 1996, a teacher was killed in police detention.

On 1 October, police attacked a demonstration of university students and teachers in Prishtina demanding education in the Albanian language and the return of school and university buildings taken over by the Serbs. Many demonstrators were beaten including BSPK leaders: Agim Hajrizi, chair of the BSPK assembly, Behxhet Rushiti, chairman of the co-ordinating committee, Selman Rugova, chairman of the police union, and Deme Loxha, chairman of the forestry union.

On 28 November, two teachers and a child were wounded when police opened fire on a primary school in the village of Lausha, 70 km from Prishtina.

Since 1990, between 3,500-4,000 Albanian police officers have been sacked for refusing to accept and recognise measures introduced by the Serbian regime. Their jobs were given to Serbs and Montenegrins. The Albanian officers formed the Independent Trade Union of Former Police Officers, which the Serb authorities have tried to destroy.

The BSPK said that trial of 174 policemen arrested in 1994 continued. Over 200 policemen had been arrested at the end of 1994 and beginning of 1995. Many of them were tortured. Most of them were released from detention in March, 1995, although 15 remained in jail.

Employers took advantage of bankruptcies to sack union leaders. Those who complained about non-payment of wages and forced leave often found themselves on forced leave, and two thirds of the workers on unpaid forced leave were union members. Employers wanted them to resign so that they would not have to pay compensation.

A new law was brought in to allow employees to resign if they were on forced leave for more than 30 days or 60 days in a year, or if salaries were delayed for over two months.

Lithuania's unions say that the law does not sufficiently protect union officials from dismissal. At the joint-stock company, Akmene concrete, members of the LWU, L. Digrilaite, A. Lapinas, B. Cinauskaite, were sacked because they would not resign from the union.

Employers continued to obstruct collective bargaining, and in some enterprises they created unions with whom they signed favourable collective agreements. Employers harassed unionists and often refused to let them hold union meetings. Labour laws and regulations were routinely flouted and the government's labour inspectors were generally either unable or unwilling to enforce them.

There is no labour court system, and there were long delays in taking cases to the ordinary courts.

Unions said that local authorities often delayed the registration of union statutes or even changed them.

The labour code dates from 1972 and contradicts new laws adopted since 1991. The government said it was drafting a new labour code.

Under the law public servants cannot bargain collectively.

Complex and lengthy pre-strike procedures include the establishment of a conciliation commission and arbitration/third party settlement before a strike can take place. Two-thirds of workers must vote in favour of a strike in a secret ballot. In some sectors of the economy, unions must give 21 days strike notice, instead of the usual seven days.

Under the 1991 laws, a union must have 30 founding members or at least 20 per cent of employees in an enterprise to form a union.

The question of the distribution of the assets of the former state-run union was still not resolved.

The Court said that the ban did not breach constitutional principles nor international law. In the ruling it displayed a negative attitude towards ILO jurisprudence on the right to strike.

Subsequently on 3 October, the government again banned a strike by the FOW.

In February, the government announced tough economic reforms, including industrial restructuring, which would mean considerable job losses. Sacked employees would be paid compensation, but the government did nothing else to create jobs, despite promises and programmes agreed with international institutions. The CNSLR-FRATIA union centres launched a series of protest actions in March and in May and November.

The 1991 Law on Trade Unions has led to the fragmentation of the union movement. Only 60 workers are required to set up a trade union confederation. This has led to the creation of over 20 national confederations, and has resulted in major problems for collective bargaining at branch and national level.

In August, a new law on collective agreements was adopted establishing procedures for determining the representative status of unions at enterprise, branch and national level. The law said that a union had to prove its legal status, its organisational and financial independence, and its number of members in court. To obtain representative status at national level, a union must have structures in at least half of the regions and representative branch federations in at least 25 per cent of the sectors of the national economy.

There are no sanctions against employers who break collective agreements. In some cases, the authorities have refused to register collective agreements and have tried to make unions renounce rights contained in them.

Under the Law on Trade Unions, the obligation to have 15 employees to form a trade union prevents unions being created in much of the private sector, as most private companies have fewer than 15 workers. Many companies ban unions from organising, and have included no-union clauses in their internal regulations, in spite of the guarantees of freedom of association in the law and the Constitution.

The law interferes into the free election of union officials by requiring them to be employed in the enterprise.

Restrictions on the right to strike make legal strikes almost impossible. Lengthy and cumbersome procedures must precede a strike, including the submission of grievances to government-sponsored conciliation.

The Minister of Labour can impose compulsory arbitration if a strike has lasted over 20 days and its continuation "is likely to affect the interests of the general economy or can put in danger humanitarian interest".

The authorities can use bureaucratic delays and administrative loopholes to declare strikes illegal, which can lead to union leaders being sacked. Employers can apply to the Supreme Court for a 90-day strike suspension on grounds of "interests of the national economy".

The government considers the following sectors as essential to the national interest: health care; teaching; energy; transport; and telecommunications and broadcasting sectors; and public supply which includes bread, milk and meat. In these sectors, one third of normal activity must be maintained during a strike.

The law imposes a financial liability on strikers and union organisers who do not meet the legal conditions for starting a strike. Court rulings on the legality of strikes nearly always find against the unions. Union officials who break the law face six month's imprisonment.

Unions in the private sector have reported that factory managers continued to use privatisation to destroy unions. In many cases, it led to the dissolution of unions.

There are no labour courts, and workers who are unfairly dismissed, or who are victims of other violations of trade union rights have little chance of redress, because court cases usually take one or two years, and the decisions are not usually implemented by employers.

The government elected in 1996 said it would discuss new union legislation with the unions, set up tripartite bodies, including the Economic and Social Council, and draw up new social security laws and a new labour code; however, little was actually done.

Debts between enterprises and the failings of the banking and fiscal systems were the main reason, but corruption, a lack of political will, and the policies advocated by the international financial institutions were also responsible

On 27 March, the FNPR, KTR and VKT union centres held an all-Russian Trade Union Day of protest against wage arrears, and there were strikes all over the country throughout the year by workers demanding to be paid.

In December the constitutional court ruled that an employer had an equal obligation to pay wages and to pay taxes.

This meant that unions could not take employers to court in order to secure the payment of wages. In practice, the payment of taxes took priority because delays in tax payments incur substantial fines and penalties, while there are no penalties for delayed wage payments.

The court overruled a section of the Russian Civil Code stipulating that workers had a basic human right to be paid their contracted wages. It meant that the government would be able claim unpaid taxes from private companies, thus increasing wage arrears to industrial workers in those companies.

By the end of the year, twenty million mainly industrial workers had not been paid, some of them for over 12 months. Some local unions had taken legal action against companies under the civil code which says that workers have the first claim on a company's assets. In the first nine months of 1997, unions in Samara launched 2000 cases against employers, and collected 104 billion roubles (nearly 20 million dollars). However, the constitutional court ruling meant this action would no longer be effective.

The government took steps in the second half of 1997 to pay its debts to pensioners and wages to military personnel and federal and local government employees, and used money from the federal budget, regional governments and loans from the World Bank. These steps partly resulted from the actions undertaken by the Russian unions, the FNPR, VKT and KTR within the framework of the All-Russia campaign for the complete and timely payment of wages.

In some cities of the Kuzbass the workers had not received full payment of their wages since November, 1994. Non-payment of wages led to physical exhaustion from under-nourishment, and in Belovo in the Kuzbass, a doctor forbade a mine safety team to go down the mine because they were physically exhausted. The transport workers' union in the city of Tula said that public transport drivers were fainting from hunger while driving their vehicles.

Serious problems arise in connection with the infringement of the individual rights of workers, such as the almost universal violation of safety precautions, as well as the non-payment of wages.

At the end of the year, the unions said that the tendency for contract labour allowing for individual fixed-term contracts to replace collective agreement in enterprises was becoming more pronounced. This reduced job security and minimised the chances of unions acting in their defence - as the authorities can much more easily resolve labour conflicts to their own advantage if the conflicts are individual rather than collective labour disputes.

Even the members of the orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow were forced to resign from their jobs and sign individual three-year contracts under inferior conditions.

The contracts quite often have no content at all, or consist of conditions which worsen workers' legal position. Employers can impose fundamental changes in working conditions - reduced working weeks, compulsory vacations - while workers are not receiving wages or are only partially paid, in violation of the law.

Under the pretext of changes in the pattern of ownership, re-structuring, reorganisation and bankruptcies, mass dismissals of workers are carried out in contravention of the law. Such practices have become so widespread that examples can be found in the overwhelming majority of enterprises.

While three new laws were passed in 1995 on unions' right to organise, bargain collectively and strike which, overall, extended basic rights, a new labour code had still not been adopted. The complete lack of a reliable system of law enforcement limited the effect of the laws.

Workers in the interior ministry, custom officers, judges and public prosecutors, the tax inspectors, the military and the security services, and rail transport cannot join unions. Strikes by public employees are banned.

The newer union centres, the KTR and VKT, said that the 1995 laws discouraged their development and tended to support the traditional unions. They cited the criteria for obtaining national status and collective bargaining arrangements, ownership of trade union assets, and management of social security funds as examples, saying that many workers only paid their union dues to the traditional unions to get social security cover.

The state continued to exercise rigid control over unions' finances. State tax and statistical agencies required quarterly and annual reports; taxed income and expenditure; and regulated union's financial activities through numerous laws and local documents.

During the year, unions again said the government was doing its utmost to divide the union movement. They described the Tripartite Commission as a loose consultative body, and said that the government did not fulfil understandings made in the framework of tripartite agreements, and persisted in submitting draft bills to parliament on industrial relations and social and economic issues without consulting unions.

Employers obstructed unionisation, especially in newly-created commercial organisations. When they hired workers, they told them they would not be able to join unions. There were reports of union activists being transferred to lower-paid jobs or sent on leave.

Enterprise managers often refused to transfer checked-off union dues to the unions and used the funds themselves to solve their own financial problems.

There were reports in some privatised plants that workers, including union committee members, were being sacked for union activities. However, the FNPR said that court action generally led to the restoration of unions and the reinstatement of illegally-sacked workers.

There is no system of labour courts in Russia. The newer unions criticised the courts for taking too long; refusing to accept, or dismissing appeals; and failing to enforce decisions.

Despite non-payment of wages, there were again reports of workers being intimidated not to strike by promises of wage and bonus payments. Strikers were often threatened with the sack; redundancy; denial of housing; and other sanctions.

The FNPR reported that in a number of cases employers have forced women applying for jobs to sign statements promising not to become pregnant during the term of an employment contract, and to sign an undated letter of resignation to which the employer can at any time add the date at his or her own discretion. This deprives women of all social security payments in case of dismissal, including payments for statutory maternity leave.

There were a number of cases of prosecutions for trade-union activity. In Moscow, a teacher at School 1247, Dmitrii Pankin, who is also a journalist for the trade-union newspaper, Solidarity, was beaten up in the school director's study, because he had tried to organise a union in the school. The police were called and he was accused of hooliganism. After being released from police custody he went for a medical examination where he was diagnosed as suffering from concussion. The case is under consideration in the Moscow regional court.

Unions also said that the practice of taking trade unions to court for participation in protest actions had become quite widespread. As a rule, either on the eve of collective actions, or as soon as they have ended, the local authorities often began proceedings to rule on the legitimacy of trade-union ownership of various forms of property. In the Moscow region the local administration initiated a number of court cases to recover a series of buildings from trade unions on the grounds that they have unexpectedly acquired "historical value". FNPR representatives considered that investigations of the ownership of trade-union property directed by local authorities of the Astrakhan and Sverdlovsk regions are similarly to be seen as a reaction of the authorities to the holding of Days of Collective Action.

Non-payment of wages had led even the state-controlled union centre, the Council of Trade Union Federations of Serbia, (SSS) to call strikes towards the end of 1996.

The teachers' union affiliated to the independent union, Nezavisnost, went on strike in January over unpaid wages. The government used various forms of pressure to stop the strike, including threats of non-payment of salaries!

The police, the authorities and the employers continued to persecute leaders and activists of Nezavisnost, formed in 1991.

Independent union activists in enterprises faced suspension from their jobs and bans from factory premises. They were also transferred to work in other places or to lower-grade jobs; sent on "forced leave"; subject to unfounded and illegal disciplinary proceedings; fired; or arrested. Parallel unions were set up in factories where independent unions had organised.

The SSS enjoys legal privileges, and can monopolise collective bargaining because only workplace unions with a majority of membership are allowed to bargain.

Enterprise directors automatically checked-off union dues to the SSS, even if they were collected from members of independent unions. Requests for payment of dues to an independent union allowed the directors to see the membership list.

The 1996 Labour Relations Law gave managers unlimited powers over contracts of employment, hiring and appointment to certain jobs, and termination of employment. It deprived workers of the right to appeal against a management decision within the enterprise. The only recourse would be to go to court or arbitration.

The Federal Law on Strikes introduced restrictive strike provisions in "enterprises of general social interest". Over 60 per cent of enterprises fall into this category.

The law allows employers to define the minimum service to be maintained during a strike. This means strikes being virtually banned in half of the economy.

It bans strikers from gathering outside workplaces.

The law says that employers cannot hire new workers to replace those on strike, but then gives certain circumstances in which new workers can be engaged. These include where it is necessary to ensure a minimum service or to fulfil international obligations.

Amendments to the Serbian criminal code in 1994 created a new offence - "abuse of the right to strike" - which carried penalties of up to a year in prison or a fine for an illegal strike.

The authorities were hostile to KOZ and tried to undermine and split the national centre. Public employees, as well as workers in large companies in the private sector, were being told to join a pro-government union or face the sack.

At the beginning of November, the government said it would begin national-level tripartite negotiations and wage talks with a small breakaway union following KOZ protests over a new draft law limiting pay increases. The government said it would register the new union and would consult them on all economic and social matters.

The Labour Government also made an election pledge to give workers the right to legal recognition for collective bargaining if a majority of union members balloted voted for it. A "Fairness at Work" White Paper was expected to be published in 1998 outlining such legislation.

However, some employers were trying to water down the proposal, saying that the entire workforce should be balloted, with abstentions counting as votes against in any ballot. They also said that small companies employing fewer than 50 workers should be excluded. Some wanted to scrap the law.

Eight pieces of employment law adopted between 1980 and 1993 remained in force. The ILO has criticised many of their provisions.

The laws have transformed the legal framework in which unions operate. They are restrictive, complex, and often unclear, and make it difficult for unionists to know whether their activities are legal or not. Unions have said that the judiciary's interpretation of the laws has been even more restrictive than expected.

The application of the law means that trade union members are at a disadvantage in their employment.

The 1993 Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act encourages employers to discriminate against union members, short of dismissal, and discourages collective bargaining.

Employers can discriminate against union members in hiring on the basis of past trade union membership and activity. It is legal for employers and others to maintain and circulate "blacklists" of union members seeking jobs.

Employers can also discriminate against union members in pay and benefits. They can deny pay increases to union members who refuse to give-up collective bargaining and sign individual employment contracts.

The Act removed the goal of promoting collective bargaining from the statement of aims of the government-sponsored conciliation and arbitration service, ACAS.

The law and the anti-union attitude of the former government, particularly during the 1980s, and the fact that employers are not legally obliged to recognise unions, led many employers to end long-standing collective bargaining arrangements.

Many of them unilaterally de-recognised unions, imposing individual contracts on their employees in place of existing collective agreements. Workers who refused to accept such contracts were discriminated against in promotion and pay. New entrants were taken on under inferior terms and in some cases only after giving no-strike undertakings.

Other aspects of the law interfere extensively into the internal affairs of trade unions, notably by preventing unions, under threat of severe fines, from disciplining union members who refuse to take part in legal strikes or who try to persuade other union members not to go on strike, even though a majority has voted for a strike in a ballot. Unions cannot use their funds to compensate officials for fines imposed on them in the course of trade union work.

Strikes are limited to disputes which involve union members and their immediate employer. Legal protection for taking part in other forms of industrial action was removed, making unions liable to crippling fines. It is virtually impossible to engage in lawful secondary or sympathy action, protest strikes or other forms of boycott action. Unions cannot go on strike where there are mixed industrial, social and political motives.

The law defines a dispute so narrowly that unions cannot strike in situations where their employer, with whom they are in dispute, hides behind a layer of subsidiary companies.

Workers are not protected against dismissal, or other disciplinary measures if they go on strike or take part in any other form of industrial action. They have no right to appeal, or to reinstatement. An employer can legally dismiss a whole workforce during a strike and selectively reinstate dismissed strikers after three months - even if the employer has provoked a strike through unreasonable behaviour.

In the case of an unofficial strike, (which under UK law includes industrial action allowed under ILO conventions) employers are acting within the law if they selectively dismiss strikers.

Individuals can take out injunctions to stop a strike on the basis that they are deprived or are likely to be deprived of goods or a service by an illegal strike.

The law also requires unions to give the employer a list of those voting in a strike ballot, and who would subsequently be going on strike. An employer can seek an injunction to prevent a strike by claiming that a strike ballot is inaccurate, and can seek damages after a ballot and after a strike has begun. This provision both threatens the confidentiality of union membership and allows employers to exert direct pressure on individual union members. Many proposed strikes have been thwarted by successful court challenges about the accuracy of ballot lists.

The law obliges unions, with few exceptions, to admit individuals or groups of workers into membership whether they wish to or not. This undermines the ability of the TUC and its affiliates to make their own decisions about union demarcation, and disrupts established patterns in industrial relations. It became illegal for a union to exclude members in accordance with decisions of the TUC Disputes Committee. The government was not able to give any justification for the legislation.

The laws regulate the internal functioning of trade unions in minute detail, the cumulative effect of which constitute an interference into the rights of trade unions.

Employers have been able to exploit the lack of legal rights afforded to workers in many ways. There are many cases of workers sacked for joining, or refusing to leave their trade union; employees who are spied on for attending union meetings; employees who are denied union recognition even where an independent ballot has been conducted showing overwhelming support for union recognition; and workers who have been sacked, often after many years of loyal service, because they asked for consultation under their union recognition agreement.

Numerous examples of this include the Co-Steel Sheerness company in Kent which spied on union meetings, de-recognised the union despite the fact that 80 per cent of the workforce wanted union representation, introduced an employee "termination programme" to root out unionists, and maintained discipline through threats and intimidation.

The Critchley Label Technology company in South Wales de-recognised the union and sacked workers who said they were going on strike. Subsequently, the company took on lower-paid agency-recruited workers. The high-street chain, Dixons, ignored a majority vote in favour of union recognition.