Russian businesses want to party like it's 1959 with 6-day workweek Russia's business tycoons have approached the country's ministry of labor suggesting it increases the working week to six days, says Kremlin-approved broadsheet Izvestia. The Avanti Association of Entrepreneurs for the (heaven help us) "Development of Business Patriotism" has reportedly urged labor minister Anton Kotyakov to …
They've been doing this for several months for the munitions factories that went to three shifts. Yes, production increased, but the failure rate increased significantly faster up to 20%, I think. But don't quote me!
And in Russia, you have to factor that drinking spirits on the job is more than just tolerated, it's the norm. It's the main reason for severe industrial accidents in the afternoon where the muziki come back from lunch drunk. If they can't drink, they won't work.
Well, it is the machinery operators. And the pints are pints of vodka…
Despite the fact that article 37 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation stipulates
that “Every citizen has the right to work in conditions that meet the requirements of safety and hygiene”, according to the Federal State Statistics Service more than 47 thousand people are injured every year at work, from about 2 thousands of them die. Quoted in https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347621934_Obtaining_statistical_data_on_industrial_accidents_in_Russia/
"Russian equipment being all equally good/shit works for the Ukrainians."
If you mean so-called "Molotov cocktails", they were named by the Finns and used against Russian tanks during the Winter War. It would seem that the Ukrainians have discovered that Russia's tanks are still vulnerable to such primitive weapons.
Remember back when Western Europe was ultra paranoid about the dreaded waves of Russian tanks crushing everything in their path on the way to the Atlantic? Seems somewhat sad and pathetic as a concept these days.
It's interesting at a deeper level as well. Soviet worker productivity was highly studied during and after the fall of the Iron Curtain (Managment Consultants no doubt looking for new ideas to sell, heh). Here's a nice article with a funny Soviet cartoon: https://libcom.org/article/labor-discipline-and-decline-soviet-system-don-filtzer
As a child of the cold war, I always heard anecdotes along similar lines, although getting older I did learn to "only believe half of what you see and none of what you hear". But it makes sense...the lack of additional personal incentive, and in fact, active discouragement of "working harder"/"standing out", probably did have exactly this effect, or worse. Double the work hours, production might drop more than half, wouldn't surprise me! Of course in the Soviet system, one also had to attend numerous Soviet meetings, vote on mundane matters, find time to stand in a bread line (depending on the year), etc.
I have no real idea what 'modern' Russia's labor laws say about hours. Is this a hypothetical maximum? Is the current one enforced? Or is it something more like the USA's Wartime Production act where industries can be forced to produce medical or war materials for stockpiling? In any case, if Russians (who themselves are not evil, just victims of their own rulers) have some profit motives, overtime pay, etc., perhaps this is good for them individually and will work out.
Even the West's 40-hour workweek is a fiction to a certain degree. People still go out and work on weekends with real outcomes, more sales, commissions paid and bonuses hit....but also not always!
Will childcare, school, and whatever else cares for the sprogs while parents work also be extended to six days? (Not that a six-day workweek would be acceptable if they were, mind.) This would definitely be a concern in the States.
Icon because "won't someone think of the children?" is actually relevant to this topic. -->
Probably some of them will start explaining how sanctions never work and Russia's economy is doing great, while another set of them will explain how the sanctions are having a large effect on the general citizen and aren't we evil for having them. Some will say that the increase in work hours is a completely normal thing to do during a crisis and some will say that they only have to increase the hours because we're denying them important stuff they need, so people are having to work on subsistence industries. Then we'll have to make room for the relatively small subset who might try to explain that this isn't actually happening. Probably the largest group will be those who don't say anything at all about Russia but start making jokes about how bad things are for workers in other countries and explaining that, even if your country isn't one of those and all the countries you're allied with aren't one of those, that you're still to blame for it somehow. Oh, I forgot, the other subset who aren't intelligent to focus their whatabout system on something related and will jump to something that's not, as one of them has already proved by focusing on their favorite topic: the Iraq war as if they think that everybody who supports Ukraine supported the invasion of Iraq and lived in one of the countries that participated. Logical fallacies are fun for these people.
@Sykowasp
What is a tankie?
And as for your "wondering"? I couldn't give a fuck about Russia/Putin. Just like I felt the same about Bush/Bliars illegal war on Iraq. Does that make me a "Tankie"?
And frankly, I am not sure why I am replying to you as I don't give a fuck about you or your troll post either.
>What is a tankie?
It was a schism in 1960s left wing groups in Britain.
The Marxist-Leninists who whore knitted jumpers without arms were known as tanktop wearers - shortened to tankies.
They were opposed by the Moaists who preferred jumpers which opened up the front, these cardigan wearers were known as card-carriers
Thank you for that interesting if obscure morsel of UK political history.
I was thinking T-50.
Looks like the Left of the '60s were not exactly the fashionistas of their age - looking more like refugees from "Steptoe and son."
I don't imagine either were a mass movement and probably couldn't field a football (FA) team each.
I am sure the contemporary Left will look just as odd to future generations but I have to admit the Right have proved even more ridiculous.
Something like this was tried in Britain in the late 1960s, a campaign called "I'm Backing Britain" trying to get people to work longer for free. Needless to say it didn't last long.
It even had a truly terrible theme song, sung by Bruce Forsyth, which you can listen to here
> reportedly urged labor minister Anton Kotyakov to extend working times to help the "economy"
Because, as we all know, nothing motivates people more than having to spend one more day a week at work, and having zero chance in hell to do anything approaching living on the one day that remains. The constant threat of being dragged into the army and getting blasted to bits in an unprovoked war of aggression against a peacful, but much better armed, neighbor state, while having to live during the worst economic downfall since the USSR crashed, is just a cherry on top of that.
What a backwards economy.
All you have to do is cancel medical care for the worker and their family unless they work 7days/week and then concentrate your military recruitment in poor areas and ethnic minorities.
That way you get to reduce costs and ethnically cleanse your society
All you have to do is cancel medical care for the worker and their family unless they work 7days/week and then concentrate your military recruitment in poor areas and ethnic minorities.
Or just put 'employees' onto zero-hour contracts, declare them to be 'self-employed' and keep jacking the price of healthcare insurance premiums up. Meanwhile, ensure there's a recruiting station in or near every public school, and keep lowering the education and fitness requirements for enlistment. Service grants citizenship! Would you like to know more?
Service grants citizenship!
Oddly enough, that is pretty much the philosophy described by Robert Heinlein in his novel Starship Troopers, where Federal (read military) service granted the right to vote. Perhaps Putin is using the novel as a textbook?
> Oddly enough, that is pretty much the philosophy described by Robert Heinlein in his novel Starship Troopers...
Since the poster you are replying to used the phrase "Would you like to know more?", which appears frequently in the movie version of Starship Troopers, I guess the quote was intentional ;-)
Well, both yes, and no, and I'm not sure.
I haven't seen the movie. I probably should.
I have read the book, and re-read it recently, which was why it was salient in my thoughts. It's regarded as a pretty important contribution from one of the major three authors who came to prominence in the 'Golden Age' of Science Fiction, the other two being Asimov and Clarke. The book, Starship Troopers has an interesting backstory/history and tends to be either strongly liked or disliked by people who read it.
So I was not responding to "Would you like to know more?", as I have no knowledge of the film - hence the "Whoosh" comment, which is apposite, and the downvotes, but more to the general idea of (military) service as a pre-requisite of citizenship.
So thank-you for your kind thought, I was and am ignorant of the film, so the "Whoosh" comment was correct. Of course, I could have been getting downvotes for other reasons I'm ignorant of, so if someone wants to clarify where I'm lacking, I'd be grateful, and try to rectify 'on the bounce'...
NN
Send a good portion of the workforce off to die just to massage the ego of the Dictator for Life, naturally the rest of the workers have to work longer hours in order to maintain productivity. Makes perfect sense ... if you are an insane card-carrying despot or one of his sycophants.
In other news, the beatings will continue until morale improves.
It's not just to glorify Putin. Russia's ability to speedily project naval power south of Siberia is highly dependent on Sevastopol – the only good deep-water port Russia currently has that's not in the far north – and Crimea's only natural connection to the mainland, and in fact its only road connection aside from the Kerch Strait Bridge (which Ukraine already disabled once, though Russia recently managed to reopen it), is through Eastern Ukraine. So there's a real military objective behind the invasion. Which doesn't justify it, morally or even strategically, of course; but there is a reason.
Now that Finland has joined NATO, imperiling Russia's Baltic and nearby Arctic naval resources, the strategic situation for Russia is even more dire.
Presumably they are ideologically against the idea of reviving the Stakhanovite movement
NN
Between people fleeing the country, people fighting/dying/hospitalized, and all the equipment being expended/destroyed in their "special military operation" they are probably approaching a pretty precarious position.
I wonder how they are going to sell this to the population? Surely if they haven't figured it out already they will figure out the war in Ukraine must be going pretty badly for this to be necessary. If people refuse are the police going to be there to arrest them? Because why should the average Russian care about Putin's goals for the economy. They aren't sharing in the spoils, they are just seeing life get tougher every year and more kids of theirs or of their friends/family that get sent away to war and don't come home.
Indeed, Russia is borked. So is Ukraine.
Meanwhile Europe is depleted of the few weapons it had, and the US is a gentle psychooperative shove away from civil war. That pretty much gives China carte-blanche to take Taiwan in the next year or so while they have the rest of the world over a barrel.
>So is Ukraine
A country facing the fastest entry to the Eu and Nato ever - with everyone in Europe/USA queuing up to pump investments into it.
>Meanwhile Europe is depleted of the few weapons it had,
Europe is depleted of the USSR era weapons it was stuck with and every arms manufacturer from Seoul to Santiago is booking next years bonus.
>the US is a gentle psychooperative shove away from civil war
The US is always one missed happy meal away from civil war, it has been since before the last civil war
>That pretty much gives China carte-blanche to take Taiwan
We just showed China what the world response is to the worlds #2 superpower invading a little farming country we don't give a fsck about.
What do you think is going to be the response to a bunch of "racial epithets" invading a country we rely on for the chips in our heated car seats ?
Yep the only way the Ukraine war ends with China feeling it has carte blanche to invade Taiwan is if republicans listening to their orange god have a hissy fit and threaten to hold the entire US government hostage if they won't help out their buddy Putin by halting Ukraine aid. So far that doesn't appear to be part of the debt limit deal but they keep changing those terms so who knows. I expect that zeroing aid to Ukraine will be in the republican budget blueprint from McCarthy's congress this fall.
If the US keeps the flow of weapons going Russia is going to run out of resources and eventually be forced to back down. The only question is how much face is Putin going to lose and how is he going to explain it back home. That outcome would really give China pause as they don't want to be in a shooting war with Taiwan in the first place - they view them as their misguided brothers they are not going to affix some demon label to them like Putin calling Ukrainians Nazis. China's soldiers are not going to want to kill Taiwanese military, and I really doubt they would be willing to bomb civilians like Russia's troops happily do to Ukrainian women and children.
I think the reason Xi committed to "friendship without limits" or whatever it was on the eve of the Ukraine war was because Putin told him they'd just walk in and occupy the whole country in a few weeks and the west wouldn't have time to respond. Now that Xi sees what happened that has to have his generals back at the drawing board trying to figure out how they can take control of Taiwan with minimal bloodshed while insuring they can effectively and permanently blockade them from receiving any aid from the outside. I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't already plans for beefing up Taiwan's military that's being kept hush-hush to avoid China finding out until the hardware has already landed in Taiwan.
"The only question is how much face is Putin going to lose and how is he going to explain it back home."
An alternative question is who is going to tell Putin he's lost 100% face and everything else and how are they going to do it? A palace revolution can't be that far away.
Oh I doubt that. He will blame it on having been up against the combined might of the US and two dozen NATO countries, as well as bad actors within his own country (like those who struck a FSB building in a part of Russia bordering Ukraine) If he has to pull out rather than admit defeat he might announce a good old fashioned Leninist purge as a way to get rid of some of those bad actors (at least those he can find) that he'd pin as the sole reason for the defeat, as well anyone else in the wrong place at the wrong time or who has ever spoken up against him. Fear will keep the average citizen in line.
IMHO the most likely way Putin gets overthrown is by the head of the Wagner group. That organization would have access to all the Russian military uniforms and intelligence like daily passwords needed to infiltrate Putin's residence and off him. So far he's only openly criticized Russia's military leadership, but some of the things he says are ambiguous and could be seen as a veiled threat to Putin. He's probably the only guy in Russia who doesn't have to worry about "accidentally" falling out of a 7th story window no matter what he says or does. Not that he'd be an improvement over Putin if he took over, but holding onto power isn't the same as gaining it as he's unlikely to have the support of the average Russian like Putin (reportedly still) does.
Consider this askew view of joint fleet operations. The PRAN has stated that showing the glorious friendship with Putin's Russia the navies are performing many joint exercises or is that closely shadowing the Russians. The PRC has made noises ( built an icebreaker) that any Arctic treaties had better include them. The Treaty of Aigun and the Treaty of Beijing still sit pretty hard and now the Treaty of Nanking has been taken care of; it time to look for more resources!
The ROC can wait will the Russians are disarming themselves in the Ukraine.
"I wonder how they are going to sell this to the population?"
Easy peasy. The rampant threat of being sent to the front line, with a shovel and fake military clothing, no food, no water etc ... for the poor idiots stupid enough to object, is going to do wonders !
I'm confident this shall work well.
They've been chasing students in universities, people in the streets, for long enough, now, that none of them can now ignore the alternatives !
It's almost as if they're running short of workers for some totally unexplained reasons which nobody could figure out even if they were as smart as Lenin.
But of course working the dumb people who stayed harder to make up for the smart people who left makes the equations all work out, yep. Who needs smart workers when you have true patriots, dedicated to the glory of the oligarchs and their stolen money?
I am absolutely for this, though. Russian people enabling all this crap need the screws tightened HARD. And then harder. Make them bleed.
And if anyone thinks that last bit is going after the wrong people, even semi-legit polls (i.e., non-state media) show that Russians generally approve of Putin's program of re-taking all of the Soviet Union, and more if he can. He's restoring their former 'glory'. It's what you get if 75% of your population were MAGA asshats or Brexiteers (if Brexiteers seriously wanted to invade, say, Ireland). Of course they're not happy about maybe being sent off to personally fight, but they overwhelmingly think Ukraine should be taken and that's just the start. So you have to make /them/ hurt or they'll just keep supporting whatever Hitler-esque thing he wants to do next.
With media almost fully under state control there is only one narrative. Imagine Fox as the only news outlet, schools having patriotism and Prosperity-Jesus on the curriculum, and dissenters on the Internet living dangerously. For decades. Then 70% MAGA would a the expected outcome. Add cops being even more State Oppression Enforcers the the US ones already are...
It's also exactly what would happen if the government were puppets in thrall to the same media which liked to portray itself to the public as the Fourth Estate, challenging the Establishment -- when in fact it is the Establishment.
You can -- in theory, at least -- vote for a different government (although the media barons command a loyal readership who vote en bloc for whoever they are told to, and number enough to secure any election result the offshore billionaires want); but as long as the "different" government you vote in work for the same paymasters, no more will change than they allow.
Yeah it is hard to know what trust to put into polls like that. Maybe the polls are lying, maybe the polls are reporting honest results tainted by people who are afraid to tell the truth, maybe honest results tainted by people being spoon fed propaganda and having greater and greater difficulty (and risk) accessing non-official sources of news.
If 75% of people really do support Putin's efforts to bring back the USSR then patriotism will cause that 6th day of work to increase output by 15% (20% gain from 75% of the population) but if those results are untrue a lot of people might slow-walk their work as a sort of quiet and risk-free protest (kind of the Russian equivalent of the "quiet quitting" meme) and they would see overall production fall despite all the extra hours of "work".
"It looks remarkably like Russia are intent on returning to the days of the USSR. Using soviet tanks. Using soviet tactics. Now they're going back to soviet working weeks - as the USSR moved to a 6 day week pre-WW2."
Well, what did you expect ? Putin, during the last many years, has always been adamant that "the worst cataclysm since WW2 was the fall of USSR" ! It shouldn't surprise anyone he's trying to re-build it ... Part of that is: opposant assassinations, WW2 military kit and tactics, and now, 6 days work ...
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