13 June, 2008
In the year 2000, a year after the first seven unions from the former Soviet Union joined the IMF, the International Metalworkers' Federation decided to open an IMF project office in Moscow for the CIS countries. That decision was a logical extension of the work the IMF and its affiliates had begun in the post-soviet area to help unions of the region strengthen and reform their organisations in order to more effectively represent the interests of metalworkers in the context of the increasing importance of the post-soviet countries in the world system of industrial production and trade.
The IMF presently has 17 member unions in the CIS countries: eight in Russia, six in Ukraine, and one each in Armenia, Belarus and Moldova; their number may increase in the near future. The IMF also maintains partnerships with a number of organisations in the region.
The processes of union modernisation, exchange of information and experience, elaborating a common discourse, developing systems of union training and contacts among workers' organisations in various parts of the world - these are the main issues which are dealt with by the IMF regional office in Moscow. Recently the office has been giving priority to such questions as protecting workers in the context of the spread of precarious employment, assistance to sectoral unions in developing their organisations and attracting new members, including at enterprises of transnationaL corporations, whose importance in the metalworking sector of the region has been constantly increasing. The IMF office conducts informational and consultative activities, and carries out union research and training programs.
In 2006, Russian became one of the official languages of the IMF. Since then the office has been translating all the main documents of the Federation into Russian, as well as IMF publications and documents from the IMF official website. The IMF's quarterly magazine Metal World is published in Russian.
Vadim Borisov ([email protected]) heads the small team at the IMF Moscow. He is assisted by Natalia Afonina ([email protected]).