(Jacobin) Since Belarus’s disputed election, both President Alexander Lukashenko and the liberal opposition have recognized the importance of strike actions in deciding what happens next. But while there have been protests across Belarus’s major workplaces, a long-shackled labor movement faces an uphill struggle to advance a political agenda of its own. […]
Added to this is the fact that Belarus’s state-owned industries need a trained workforce. In effect, Belarusian industrial workers are not that easily dispensable, and this — together with the fact that their factories are owned by the government — accounts for the power they yield. Ukrainian sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko further points out that Belarus’s mono-industrial town setup, inherited from the Soviet Union, brings together the problems of the community and those of the workshop. […]
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Recommended:
Volodymyr Ishchenko, “The Opposition in Belarus Is Not All on the Same Side,” Jacobin, August 22, 2020.
