I have heard western leftists argue that Ukrainian workers need to beware of Europe because EU labour regulations compare poorly with the letter of Ukraine’s labour law. Maybe true, but surely irrelevant. Ukraine’s labour law is rarely enforced to workers’ advantage, because workers’ organisation is not widespread enough or strong enough to enforce it. Whether Ukraine ends up imposing legal frameworks from the Eurasian customs union (Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan), or the EU, or neither, it will be the level of organisation that matters most. In the meantime, for young Ukrainian workers “Europe” means “higher wages”.
On Monday 24 February in Kyiv, completely by chance, I came across about 2000 medical students from one of Ukraine’s most prestigious universities on a spontaneous demo. They were demanding the dismissal of their rector, who had threatened to discipline students who joined the Maidan medical corps. Chatting to some of them, it seemed to me that they look at the world much as do their counterparts right across Europe (or in Russia for that matter). I was struck by how their transnational outlook contrasts with the nationalist symbols on Maidan – legacies of the process of national self determination that Ukraine didn’t complete in the 19th or 20th centuries, and that in the 21st seem like an echo of the past. full: http://peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/ukraine-2-a-political-earthquake-for-europe-and-russia/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
