Trade union

Statement by Gazprom’s Interregional Trade Union Chairman

At present, the Interregional Trade Union (ITU) of Gazprom encompasses 68 trade unions with 335,117 members, 291,426 of those are currently employed.

The scope of the ITU membership is growing percentage-wise and it now stands at 91.9 per cent of the total employee number, while Gazprom Dobycha Noyabrsk and Gazprom Transgaz Ufa have reached a 100 per cent level of the trade union membership.

Prior to establishment of the Gazprom ITU, trade unions of each subsidiary company tried to defend the employees’ interests through their own efforts and came up with rather poor results. The vertically integrated corporate model attributable to Gazprom required that a unified trade union be established to accumulate information about local disputes, to organize and submit it to the Gazprom Administration for discussion and to jointly elaborate strategic action plans.

The Interregional Trade Union of Gazprom was set up at the constitutive conference on February 1, 2000.

From the first days, the ITU was working on the Tariff Agreement – the most urgent regulatory document for the employees and the Union members. The Agreement brought the social partnership to a new level and, therefore, provided the opportunity to unify the rules of social and labor relations, and the system of guarantees, benefits and allowances for all the employees of Gazprom. The Tariff Agreement came into effect on January 1, 2001. New horizons opened for the ITU to further resolve the emerging socioeconomic issues.

The Tariff Agreement and the effective General Collective Agreement backbone the activities of Russia’s largest company.

The Gazprom ITU elaborated a simple and efficient operating principle: “a single employer – a single representative of the employees (a trade union)”. This is a reasonable condition for successful cooperation of both parties within the social partnership.

On December 4, 2009 Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, and Vladimir Babkin, Chairman of the Gazprom ITU, signed the General Collective Agreement of Gazprom and its subsidiaries for 2010–2012 at the Gazprom Dobycha Yamburg headquarters in Novy Urengoy.

The Agreement enacted on January 1, 2010 includes specific and stringent obligations on the part of the employer, and provides further opportunities to resolve the emerging socioeconomic issues on the part of the employees. In addition, the employees will get more favorable guarantees and benefits than those stipulated by the legislation in force, other legal acts and the gas industry tariff agreement.

Compliance with the terms of the Agreement is constantly monitored by the authorized representatives of the employees and the employer. In case of non-compliance, the appropriate measures will be taken.

The ITU is particularly concerned with increasing the employees’ wages. It should be mentioned that from the moment of the ITU creation, Gazprom has performed 16 indexations of the minimum tariff rate in line with the consumer prices growth.

The ITU of Gazprom and trade unions of subsidiary companies regularly arrange such corporate events as the Spartakiada Games, the Fakel Festival of amateur creative teams and performers, literary and photo contests.

On October 20, 2009 Moscow hosted the International Conference “Innovations in Russian Trade Union Movement: Practice and Problems” arranged by the Gazprom ITU in cooperation with the Academy of Labor and Social Relations under the auspices of the Russian Oil, Gas and Construction Workers’ Union.

On the basis of their experience, the researchers and experts participating in the Conference made the following conclusion:

the ITU is an advanced form of a trade union participation in social and labor relations, the form that ensures efficient application of the social partnership principles and creation of modern mechanisms for cooperation among social partners both on the occupational and territorial levels.