MOSCOW, Feb 5 (Reuters) - When Siberian air traffic controllers went on hunger strike in December to press for higher pay, it was a turning point for workers who felt betrayed by profit hungry bosses and the start of a winter of discontent.
The controllers saw more flights over Siberia and new money rolling into the industry, but they got none of it. Barred by law from walking out, they refused food for a total of 11 days until doctors declared them unfit to work and a major airport at Omsk was closed.
The protest won the air traffic controllers a 28.5 percent pay hike -- some staff had been surviving on as little as $80 a month -- and a wave of strike threats began at some of Russia's biggest enterprises.
The threat of a pay strike at metals giant Norilsk Nickel (GMKN.RTS) has sent world nickel prices soaring.
At Aeroflot, flight crews and ground staff have threatened to ground the flagship carrier if pay demands are not met.
Labour leaders say such high-profile pay strikes by relatively well paid workers in crucial Russian industries are almost unprecedented.
"People are starting to ask, 'What am I worth'?" said Eduard Vokhmin, programme director at the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Centre, a legal assistance organisation in Moscow.
Russian workers have rarely forced that question. The last time Russia saw a big wave of strikes was in the mid-1990s when some companies were not paying wages at all.
"Salaries should just be paid. That's a priori. That was a degradation, an upside-down situation," Vokhmin said.
"Now a normal situation is starting -- pay comes on time but it is so low that the cost of labour has become an issue."
It is becoming an issue as the ground shifts under the Russian economy.
FROM LABOUR CAMP TO BLUE-CHIP COMPANY
Norilsk Nickel management was famous for its ability to cut deals with restive workers and head off union strikes before the possibility was ever broached in the newspapers.
Norilsk, the world's largest palladium producer, was built as a forced labour camp above the Arctic circle where prisoners of Stalin's Gulag were literally worked to death. Now it is a blue-chip corporation, but the Arctic weather and sky-blackening pollution have not improved with the advent of capitalism.
As compensation for hellish conditions, workers received medical care, free holidays and nearly three months of annual leave, a legacy of the Soviet social safety net.
The trouble began when new management promised to improve efficiency, like every other blue chip firm. It slashed social benefits, cut annual leave, and said salary increases would lag inflation.
Transparency of cashflows is a demand of both Norilsk workers and the air traffic controllers, a pre-emptive measure to ensure they know how much they could be paid. Labour leaders have noticed companies' coffers are not exactly bare.
"A lot depends on information about where the money is going. We have a big gap between workers' salaries and management's. This is a big problem," said Vasily Veryovkin, deputy chairman of the Russian Oil and Gas Workers' Union.
The corporate efficiency drive is expected to see millions of workers laid off in coming years and labour leaders shrug in dismay when asked if the still-frail Russian economy can absorb the new masses of unemployed.
MORE LAYOFFS TO COME
The biggest layoffs will come at state concerns such as the state railway corporation and power utility Unified Energy System (EESR.RTS), both undergoing massive restructuring.
Frustration has mounted as inflation continues to run high and household costs shoot up as the government raises the cost of heat and hot water, claiming public utilities are in ruins and money is needed to fix them.
But the nation's workers are not taking to the streets. Union leaders say there is little in the way of a labour market, so Russian unions are relatively weak. That weakness is also a function of Russia's huge territory, and partly a reflection of a brotherhood in toil which exists Norilsk.
Management even participates in some company-wide labour unions, especially in the oil and gas sector -- a phenomenon Vokhmin of the AFL-CIO calls 'vertically integrated unions for vertically integrated companies.'
"We defend what we have and try to get more from employers, but we say you can't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs," said Veryovkin of the oil and gas union.
"Senior management always supports us," he said. "A lot of the responsibility (for conflicts) lies with local management."
Still, the authorities have not looked kindly on union activity or leaders. In December, an American AFL-CIO activist, Irene Stevenson, was deported from Moscow airport on her return from the Christmas holiday, although she had a new, valid visa.
The AFL-CIO said the government cited a law allowing deportations on grounds of national security concerns.
A Novosibirsk judge banned hunger strikes by air traffic controllers, raising a chuckle from the union president.
"Some of the guys have already said they'll spend their raise on a load of food," Sergei Kovalyov said. "Next we'll protest by binging. Then the court can try to ban overeating."