BARRIERS TO COLLECTIVE ACTION - STEELWORKERS AND MUTUAL DEPENDENCE INTHE FORMER SOVIET-UNION

The author examines the question of why labor in the former Soviet Uni on has remained so quiet during this tumultous period. He conducts a m ost similar case study of coal miners, who have struck and organized m ilitant trade unions, and of steelworkers in the same communities, who have not. To explain the lack of strike activity, the concept of mutu al dependence is developed, whereby the enterprise is dependent on wor kers in a labor-short economy and workers in turn have been dependent on the enterprise for the provision of goods and services in short sup ply. The provision of a high level of such goods and services through the workplace was found to prevent independent worker activity in stee l mills and certain coal mines. Implications are drawn for theories of collective action and the study of the former Soviet Union and its ec onomic and political transformation.