The trade union committee of St Petersburg University defends the University employees’ rights

Leonid Ivanov, Head of the Trade Union Organisation of St Petersburg University Employees, spoke about the work done today to protect the rights of the staff of our University and sometimes of the employees of other Russian universities along with them.

The University’s trade union organisation can most effectively fulfil the role of a representative of the employees’ interests, provided that the trade union includes employees belonging to all professional and age groups constituting the large and diverse staff of St Petersburg University. In your opinion, to what extent does the qualitative and quantitative composition of the trade union committee members correspond to the size and features of the University’s workforce structure?

The Trade Union Organisation of St Petersburg University Employees is indeed a team whose members belong to various professional and age groups that make up the numerous and multifaceted staff of St Petersburg University. The organisation consists of academic and engineering workers, administrative and educational support staff, and other categories of employees. It also includes retirees and former employees of our University. The qualitative composition of our trade union members is therefore, of course, associated with the structure of the University’s workforce.

The trade union committee is elected once every five years at a reporting and election conference of the Trade Union Organisation of St Petersburg University Employees. Conference delegates are elected in each of the 37 divisions of our organisation. Their number depends on the number of trade union members. The norm of representation is established by the decision of the trade union committee. As a rule, it is one delegate per each 30 trade union members. The trade union committee consists of: the chairpersons of the boards; the chairperson of the organisation; their deputies; and the chairpersons of the trade union bureaus of the University trade union’s divisions. Any member of our organisation who observes the University Charter and pays membership fees may be elected a member of the trade union committee. Other restrictions are not provided for by the Charter. That is, the personal composition of the trade union committee depends on the will of the members of the organisation.

The quantitative composition of our organisation depends on many factors. Firstly, from the activity of the trade union members and their desire to do something useful not only for themselves, but also for others. Secondly, from their being informed about our work, the goals, tasks and opportunities of the trade union. In addition, age matters a lot. Indeed, in any activity, if there is a fusion of the energy of the young and the experience of the mature, success is guaranteed. Unfortunately, at present, our trade union team is dominated by experience. There is not always enough energy.

What should be done so that the employees participating in this organisation represent all departments, all professional and age groups that make up the University’s workforce?

Over the past few years, the trade union committee has been trying to ensure that each division of the University has a division of our organisation. We managed to restore the trade union cells at: the Faculty of Law; the Graduate School of Management; the "Universitetsky" health-improving complex; the Department for Youth Affairs; the Personnel Department; and the Motor Fleet. The formation of trade union bureaus at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and the Faculty of Dental Medicine and Medical Technologies is almost completed. The trade union committee will make efforts to ensure that the newly formed and long-standing cells of the trade union organisation are replenished in the near future with new members representing all professional and age categories of members of the University staff.

What rights and benefits do St Petersburg University trade union members enjoy if compared to employees who are not the members?

According to the Labour Code, the trade union organisation protects the collective labour interests of all employees at the enterprise. A trade union is an additional protection for an employee. The rights of the University’s workforce are protected not only by the Labour Code, but also by the trade union organisation that provides additional benefits and guarantees. I will give some examples to illustrate it. The trade union organisation provides all members of the University’s workforce with free legal assistance in matters of: hiring; transfers to other positions; dismissal; guarantees and compensation; and working hours and rest time. The trade union organisation assists the University employees in their professional development. The Labour Inspectorate, which operates as part of the trade union organisation, protects all University employees if they face illegal employment termination or other extra-legal actions of the employer. Our employees can count on the help of the trade union organisation in considering and resolving issues of improving their living conditions and receiving subsistence support. The trade union organisation controls that the employees of the University get all the socio-economic norms and benefits provided for by the collective agreement. In the same way, the trade union organisation represents the interests of the workforce at: the University Academic Council; the Labour Disputes Board, personnel qualification boards; and the University Committee on Health and Safety.

Along with protecting the collective rights of all University employees, the trade union organisation defends the individual rights and interests of its members. In particular, the trade union members are entitled to subsidies when purchasing voluntary medical insurance policies. The trade union organisation provides its members with material compensation for the costs of treatment for the coronavirus disease and other serious illnesses. When resting at the "Universitetsky" health-improving complex, trade union members enjoy unique cashback conditions, which include compensation of up to 100% of the cost of the tour. Our trade union organises various sightseeing tours around St Petersburg and Russia for its members at very preferential prices and with large discounts. The trade union members have the opportunity to enjoy benefits when purchasing tickets to the Mariinsky Theatre and other St Petersburg theatres. A trade union card gives its holder access to preferential mobile communication tariffs (the TELE2 communication service provider). Trade union members with first-graders in the family receive lump sum payments. Also, such payments are provided to those trade union members who leave St Petersburg University due to retirement. Finally, the University trade union organisation regularly provides subsistence support to its employees. To fund all the above benefits and forms of social support, the trade union organisation of St Petersburg University allocated more than 8.75 million roubles in 2021, and about 10 million roubles during the ten months of 2022.

When holding competitions to recruit academic and teaching staff at St Petersburg University, the number of publications indexed by Scopus and the Web of Science is taken into account. Earlier, Russian authors also repeatedly faced the reluctance of journals to publish their papers. From now on, such cases may become more frequent. Is the University trade union organisation planning to make it clear that there is a need to change the criteria for publication activity assessment used when signing labour contracts with academic staff?

On 13 April 2022, the production board of our trade union organised a round table discussion participated by the University’s academic community. It was titled ’On the criteria for evaluating the results of scientific and educational activities of the teaching staff’. The discussion was attended by: Mikhail Piotrovsky, Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dean of the Faculty of Asian and African Studies at St Petersburg University; Valerii Mokienko, Professor in the Department of Slavic Philology; and Professor Valerii Nemets, Head of the Laboratory of Spectral Analysis of the Research Institute of Physics at St Petersburg University. In total, 15 Doctors of Science, seven Candidates of Science, eight members of the University Academic Council, one Honorary Professor of St Petersburg University, three deans, six heads of departments, and two heads of academic programmes spoke at that round table. As a result of lively and sometimes heated discussions, the participants agreed that the current geopolitical situation with unprecedented sanctions pressure on Russia from the West creates conditions for the restoration of the sovereignty of our country in science and education. The national interests require not only the release of Russian science and education from pro-Western indices and rankings, but also the transition from the quantitative (scientometric) to a balanced qualitative (expert) and quantitative assessment of the results of scientific and educational activities. That means a speedy development and implementation of effective and essential approaches to management of scientific and pedagogical activities.

In addition, the trade union committee of St Petersburg University provided massive support to the organisation and holding of a round table discussion titled ’20 years of the Bologna system in Russian higher education: The losses and the gains’. It was held at the Palace of Labour on 25 May 2022. The event was organised by the Association of Trade Unions of St Petersburg Universities and the Industry Board of the Higher School of the Interregional Organisation of the Trade Union of Public Education and Science Workers of the Russian Federation. The round table was attended by more than 50 trade union activists from 16 universities of St Petersburg. They were mostly full professors and associate professors, doctors and candidates of science. The main topic of the discussion was the pros and cons of abandoning the Bologna system of higher education in Russia. The plans to abandon the system in May 2022 were announced by Valery Falkov, Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation. Russian universities started their transition to the Bologna system back in 2002 and completed the process by 2011. Since then, students may graduate with either a bachelor’s or master’s degree. Some Russian institutes, universities and academies did not award specialist’s degrees at all. Initially, the signing of the Bologna declaration assumed that the diplomas of Russian graduates would be recognised in Europe. To date, that has never happened. The experts and university trade union activists who gathered for discussion urged not to switch to the old system overnight. They suggested that both methods of certification be adopted at the first stages. Some universities in St Petersburg do use such practice. One of the proposals that caused the most heated debate was to reduce the status of the bachelor’s degree by setting it equal to secondary specialised education, and slightly increase the importance of the master’s degree to the level of a second higher education. The participants were not unanimous about that initiative. I also had a chance to take part in the discussion. I tried to substantiate in as much detail as possible the position of our trade union committee. We are sure that drastic changes rarely give a positive result. Yet it is totally impossible to follow the former course. The experience accumulated during the use of the Bologna format will enable us to fully understand its benefits and drawbacks before taking a new step forward.

All the conclusions reached by the participants of the round table discussion were formalised in a resolution. Then, they were sent to the appropriate committees of the State Duma and the Federation Council, to the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, and the Praesidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In the context of all mentioned discussions, the issue of the criteria used at Russian universities and scientific institutions for assessing the qualifications and performance of the teaching staff and researchers was certainly raised and actively discussed. At the same time, nobody had any doubts that publication activity was and should remain one of the most objective and effective criteria for the professional assessment of academic and teaching staff. Yet the application of such criteria turned out to be not entirely objective. In this sense, it does not meet its main purpose, i.e. to stimulate research activity and professional growth of scholars and thereby contribute to the progress of Russian science. First of all, we are talking about the fact that, in assessing the publication activity of academic and teaching staff, priority is still often given to publications indexed by foreign scientometric systems. At the same time, in modern conditions, many foreign scientific editions indexed in Scopus and the Web of Science do not particularly favour, to put it mildly, or even directly discriminate applications for publications sent by Russian researchers. Many university-based scholars have already faced this problem. It is obvious that the difficulties in publishing their findings abroad will only multiply. The trade union committee of St Petersburg University will therefore continue to use every opportunity to ensure that the weight of scientific publications indexed in the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI), a Russian scientometric system, be equated to Scopus and the Web of Science when assessing the publication activity of the University’s academic staff.

Can, in your opinion, the publication of research findings in Russian scientific journals lead to the leakage of sensitive information, given that some of them are in the public domain?

If the publication of research findings in Russian scientific journals will be considered equal to that in the international ones (especially if they are published not in a foreign language), our scientific community will sooner learn about these findings. It will also save the authors time and expenses and will cause an increased interest in learning the Russian language abroad. And our publishers must ensure the protection of state secrets and copyright protection.

There was an opinion that the current international rankings did not take into account the Russia-specific features of higher education. Yet, in the current settings, there may even be a deliberate underestimation of the positions of Russian universities. What ranking systems for higher education institutions will become a priority in Russia, in your opinion?

Will they or would we like them to be? Here I agree with the answer given by Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. ’The current situation proves that we need to uphold the traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, reform our education and enlightenment system, bringing back the historically justified advantages of the national school. I am still convinced that the Soviet school of education has historically been the most advanced and progressive in the world, and moving forward should be carried out with that in mind.’

As for the current international rankings, the point, in my opinion, is not the Russian specifics of higher education. It is the anti-Russian interests of the compilers of these rankings. They are used as a tool to influence the orientation of our education and research not for the benefit of Russia, but for serving the interests that are alien to us. And also, to fund the work that our country does not need at the expense of the Russian Federation and the personal funds of the authors (who are required to have their papers translated). The Russian ranking system must be oriented towards the benefit of Russia. And it should be created not only by the officials, but also by the researchers.