The Role of Trade Unions in Contemporary Belarus

Abstract
Labor unions are widely regarded as crucial to representing the economic interests of the working class. Furthermore, labor unions are a powerful social force that can advance democratization processes in a country or bolster the strength of the authoritarian regime. Using the case of Belarus, this study examines the role of trade unions in a repressive political regime. An unprecedented number of Belarusian workers protested against the incumbent government in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election and demanded an end to police violence against participants in peaceful post-election protests, the cancelation of fraudulent election results, and the resignation of the long-serving incumbent. Thousands of workers at major state enterprises, including Belaruskalii, one of the world’s largest producers of potash fertilizers in Salihorsk, the oil refinery Naftan in Navapolatsk, and Belarus Automobile Plant in Zhodzina, joined contentious collective action. In turn, the coercive apparatus targeted independent trade unions and in particular the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions, uniting over 12,000 workers from the Belarusian Independent Trade Union, the Belarusian Free Trade Union, the Free Metalworkers’ Union, and the Belarusian Trade Union of Workers of Radio and Electronic Industry. The project seeks to analyze the causes and consequences of labor mobilization in the aftermath of the fraudulent elections.

Speaker Bio
Olena Nikolayenko is a Professor of Political Science at Fordham University. Originally from Ukraine, she received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Toronto and held visiting appointments at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies at Princeton University, the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University, the Project House Europe at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Germany), and the Department of Sociology at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Ukraine). Her research interests include comparative democratization, contentious politics, women’s activism, and youth, with a regional focus on Eastern Europe. She is the author of two books, Citizens in the Making in Post-Soviet States (Routledge 2011) and Youth Movements and Elections in Eastern Europe (Cambridge University Press 2017). Her current book project examines women’s participation in the 2013-2014 Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine.