Slave labor returns to Russia

It seemed more difficult to convince everyone to wear a mask (it was a pandemic). For some reason, an innocent request caused discontent and irritation. By the end of the working day, which dragged on until ten in the evening, he could hardly stand on his feet.

The next morning, he was told that he would be on night duty, and after a tedious work shift. Like, what difference does it make where to sleep – in a rest room or in a hostel!

But I couldn’t sleep. Every two hours it was necessary to call the authorities and report the situation. As if you are not in a store, but at a military post. It is impossible to fall asleep between reports, and by morning he literally turned off from fatigue.

He was awakened by the sound of a siren.

– Are you deaf? Did you cover your ears with duct tape? yelled the senior shift over the radio. – All right, man! You will work out the penalty!

The sports veteran returned to the hostel, collected his things and, spitting on everyone, left for his homeland. Away from all this stress and headache. More, he says, not a foot in the capital!

Why this story? If you look closely, there are so many gloomy and gloomy people around: on the street, in the supermarket, in public transport. Some simply fall asleep in the subway car or on the tram from fatigue. Including young and healthy young men, who are usually called guest workers. All these people are prisoners of circumstances, forced to work without sleep and rest for a penny. In addition, endure rudeness and rudeness from the new owners. Where does the mood come from!

The lack of any alternatives, insecurity and absolute “uncertainty in the future”, as they once wrote about the decaying West, do not add optimism. Today, we ourselves have adopted the norms and rules of capitalist society, but in an even worse version. The burden on a person has increased, pay has decreased, and there are no privileges left for the “hegemon” – a simple worker who does not occupy a managerial position.

“When you go to work in a supermarket, get ready to plow for 16 hours,” employees share their personal experience on one of the forums. “You need to arrive at seven in the morning and leave at twenty-three. At the same time, to pay shortages, to participate in night audits, to receive constantly either from buyers or from superiors. You will be pulled out of schedule, shmonat like a convict (suddenly someone whistles expired cheese for children). Working in a store is hell, a humiliation of human dignity. In a few days, she developed a hand tremor. ”

“There is rudeness all around, some kind of bullying, lack of elementary education. Not all, but the vast majority. Communication with superiors takes place in the form of screams, assaults, sticking. After three days of work, she could not get out of bed, her lower back ached, her legs fell off, sleep was gone, her whole body ached. On my day off, I lay in bed all day. This is not work, but death to health sooner or later … “

In the recent past, the proletarian had an eight-hour working day, two days off, a health bulletin. Each team, even the smallest, had its own trade union committee that protected its interests and monitored working and rest conditions. And, by the way, his own large-circulation printed organ, where you could “sneak in” on someone and even get satisfaction. In a word, serious attention was paid to human labor and health.

Slave labor returned to our country with private property. Especially in the service sector, among taxi drivers, builders, loaders, sellers, cashiers, controllers, security guards… And there are no instances that protect the interests of ordinary hard workers and small employees. They are, after all, the bulk of our population. But something is nowhere heard of demands to improve the situation of those who extract oil and gas “in the north” or cut coal in the mine shaft. Nobody arranges strikes, demonstrations, pickets, processions in case of explosion and death of miners. There are no demonstration trials of the perpetrators of the tragedy – the heads of the monopolies. And no one to complain to. The main defenders of the proletarians disappeared, died out like mammoths.

Meanwhile, the trade unions are alive and well. At least their main bosses. Some even flicker in the gossip column or in the lists of rich people. And, apparently, for a long time they no longer take a steam bath and do not tear their shirt on their chests in concern for the fate of the working class.

I remember that after the death of the “leader of the peoples”, a pair of worn boots and two weekend tunics were found in his wardrobe. The current oligarchs will leave behind elite real estate, including those in countries under sanctions, their own airliners, luxurious boats and other attributes of a luxurious life.

The monstrous enrichment of the oligarchy and the bureaucratic class against the background of the impoverishment of the broad masses is the main “conquest” of the Yeltsin reforms. They calmly and openly declare their annual income, measured not even in tens, but in hundreds of millions of rubles. But can someone explain: how can a head of a region or a minister earn hundreds of millions in a country where the average pay barely exceeds 50,000 rubles a month? For what successes and merits?! While high-ranking officials bathe in their untold millions, the population continues to get poorer and decrease in numbers.

But traders manage to benefit even from trouble. In many cities and villages, various “advanced” chain stores have grown up like mushrooms after a rain, selling cheap, but inedible products to naive citizens. Because they use non-natural ingredients in their production. It is no coincidence that the trading floors of some mass markets “smell” with synthetic fragrances. It’s like you’re in the household chemicals department, not the grocery. Our citizens are forced to buy food that causes irreparable damage to their health.

The interest of the new world-eaters directly depends on the worsening situation of the masses. One of the major retailers said in an interview: “The worse the macroeconomic situation or the more people whose incomes are falling, the better for us.” Not even trying to hide the pleasure of the conjuncture. Indeed, as incomes fall, people are forced to give up a lot, but they cannot refuse food! It is no coincidence that the revenue of one by no means the largest chain of grocery stores last year amounted to almost 200 billion rubles. The owners of the company were among the richest people in Russia according to Forbes.

Of course, we are glad that someone has fallen, but not at the expense of the millions who have become impoverished! Probably, these dealers were meant by the classic in the imperishable phrase: there is no such crime that the capitalist will not commit for the sake of a profit of 300 percent …

According to official figures, about 200,000 people in Russia are injured at work each year, 180,000 die due to occupational diseases, and tens of thousands become disabled. According to the report of the All-Russian Research Institute of the Ministry of Labor of the Russian Federation, due to these reasons, the budget loses 1.7 trillion rubles a year, or 1.6 percent of GDP. In a word, slavish conditions and loads cause enormous damage not only to citizens, but also to the state itself.

Recently, one of the State Duma deputies shared his thoughts on how to ennoble the lives of people in a country with a not very developed economy. He cited Hungary as an example, where there is practically no gold, diamonds, non-ferrous metals, where there is little oil, gas, coal. But the government manages to maintain free education, free healthcare and other gains of the socialist past that has suddenly become “hated” for many. Allocate housing to young families, almost interest-free mortgages, as debt obligations are reduced by a third with the advent of each child. Even expensive operations are done at the expense of the budget, including for small children, without squealing money on TV for everyone and everyone in front of the whole world, as is customary in our country.

This is how the development and preservation of the family are stimulated, and not just by benefits alone. By the way, about grants. It is no secret that in our realities, many “whip” children solely because of these benefits, which they immediately drink away. And kids become outcasts from the moment of birth until the end of their miserable life. First, a children’s home, an orphanage, a boarding school, and then an unsettled adult life, similar to a “tumbleweed”.

At one time, the young reformers, led by Gaidar and Chubais, created the conditions for the well-being of an exceptionally narrow group of comrades-in-arms. However, this was also the case under serfdom, under feudalism, imperialism, capitalism: a few prosper at the expense of the absolute majority of others. And these few at the top of the power, for their convenience, wrote laws, tax breaks and rules that allowed them to lobby, privatize, monopolize, expropriate and parasitize. Or, in the context of today’s life, to refuel, squeeze, seize and fatten.