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Russia: Union-busting at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology
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| In partnership with UNISOL and the Confederation of Labour of Russia - KTR. |
The Union of the Higher Education Teaching Personnel/University Solidarity (UNISOL) has been fighting for the rights of teachers at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) for several years. Under the union's pressure, salaries have risen significantly from their former miserable level. The union blocked inordinate increases of professors' teaching loads and has also fought the rector's initiative to end the elections of department and faculty heads, a right provided by the Labour Code of Russia.
The union's resistance to this last attempt to restrict democratic governance at the school has aroused the rector's ire, who decided to get rid of the union leader, Maxim Balashov, professor of mathematics and chairperson of the labour union. The procedure for filling the post of professor of higher mathematics, a post occupied for five years by Prof. Balashov (who has worked at MIPT for 19 years in various capacities) and that had to be renewed through a formally competitive procedure, took place amidst gross violations of various laws and regulations, not to speak of common decency. During that session, the administration openly expressed their motivation by criticisms of Prof. Balashov regarding his activity as the head of the union.
Please support UNISOL's struggle for union rights and democracy, and send the following message to Mr. Nikolay Kudryavstev, rector of MIPT.
