And an even more important question: why did they conduct it?
After all, once the project was launched, all the Kremlin-controlled media wrote a million times that it was all nonsense, that nobody needed it, and that we wouldn’t be able to compete with the official trade unions—the very ones that support Putin and United Russia.
The answers to these questions are easy to find once you look at these two things:
The publicly available part of the VTsIOM study (Russia’s state-run public opinion research center):
Eighty-two percent of people believe that trade unions currently play no role at all. Fifty-three percent say they help no one, but most people still believe they could work effectively.
Here is a newly released address from a teacher in the city of Naberezhnye Chelny. He is an activist with the Teachers’ Alliance union and is demanding something simple: the salary guaranteed by the “May decrees” (Putin’s 2012 executive orders) for himself and his colleagues. He talks about how his union work is going, and it is very interesting to listen to—not least for understanding what the authorities will do against trade unions.
So I have no doubt that people told VTsIOM roughly the same thing:
- everyone’s wages are low; your statistics are lying,
- the “May decrees” are not being implemented; your statistics are lying,
- if Navalny and his campaign offices are helping trade unions fight to get the wages they were promised, then good for Navalny. Strange that it’s Navalny doing this and not your United Russia.
People support our campaign because there is no catch to it. We state our goals plainly and do what we say. We support every trade union that needs our support. We do not demand anything in return, and we do not ask anyone to support us in return.
So go here: https://union.navalny.com/
And if you know a teacher, send them Valiullin’s video: I’m sure any teacher would find it interesting.