Having stood by their employers through the lean years following the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian workers are now demanding a fair share of growing profits. As companies respond to the rising economy by attempting such American business practices as wage, benefit, and employment reductions, employees are responding by forming independent unions and going on strike. In engaging in this grass-roots activism, workers are running into opposition not only from businesses, but also from the government, and the FNPR-the state-sanctioned union that is a holdover from the USSR.
See "Russia's bold new proletariat", Fred Weir, The Christian Science Monitor, September 5, 2001