Russian Authorities Won't Renew Visa of U.S. Labor Organizer

Move Seen as Part of Crackdown On Western-Funded Civic Activism

MOSCOW, Sept. 10 -- Russian authorities have refused to renew the visa of an American labor activist working with a dockworkers union in Kaliningrad, the latest in a series of visa denials targeting Western trade unionists, business people, journalists and lawyers whose activities attracted the suspicion of state officials.

Elizabeth Vladeck, 30, who is married to a Russian citizen and local trade unionist, was forced to leave Russia late last month after working in the port city for a year. In April she had helped organize a union membership drive among dockworkers at the Sea Commercial Port of Kaliningrad, located in a Russian territorial enclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea.

"Management thought the union was dead, and the drive was a rude awakening," Vladeck said in a telephone interview from New York.

Russian trade unionism is dominated by the Federation of Independent Trade Unions, which claims 29 million members. A successor organization to the docile Soviet labor movement, the federation is generally far less aggressive than new, smaller unions in demanding better conditions for workers and striking to secure members' aims.

The federation is closely allied with United Russia, the pro-Kremlin political party that dominates regional and national politics. The head of the federation frequently meets with President Vladimir Putin, and one of its top officers is a United Russia member of parliament.

A federation affiliate is the officially recognized union of the approximately 500 dockworkers at the Kaliningrad port. The union Vladeck was working with, the Russian Union of Dockers, was formed in 1995 and has clashed for years with management in its attempts to compete against the sanctioned union in Kaliningrad and build what it calls truly independent representation for the workers. It is not recognized by the port's management.

Mikhail Chesalin, leader of the union, said he believes the port's management orchestrated the denial of Vladeck's visa, which he said was part of a wider campaign of intimidation directed against union activists.

Chesalin, who is also a member of the local parliament in Kaliningrad, was stabbed in the back and beaten in the city in June. He continues to recover from spinal and head injuries. "I believe I was attacked because I'm a trade union activist, and we believe the port management organized it," said Chesalin, who defeated the port's general director in local parliamentary elections in 2006. "There is an atmosphere of fear in the port."

Vladeck is a 2006 Columbia Law School graduate with long experience in Russia. During her work in Kaliningrad, she was sponsored by the Center for Social and Labor Rights, a Russian grass-roots organization that is funded in part by the Ford Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

A spokesman for the port declined to comment on Vladeck's case, the assault on Chesalin or management's attitude toward the union.

The European Court of Human Rights has accepted a complaint from the dockers union alleging discrimination based on union membership and violations of the right to freedom of association. Vladeck's husband, Sergei Danilenkov, is the lead plaintiff.

Elena Gerasimova, director of the Center for Social and Labor Rights, said independent trade unions are subject to constant pressure, not only from employers but also from state bodies. "Often our state officials are acting for employers," Gerasimova said. "Registering a new union is very difficult. They find violation after violation to prevent this."

Officials at Russia's migration service did not respond to repeated requests for comment. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Moscow said American diplomats are in touch with Vladeck but could not discuss the case because of privacy laws.

In December 2002, Irene Stevenson, who worked for the AFL-CIO in Russia, was turned back at a Moscow airport "based on information provided by the FSB," the successor security agency of the KGB, according to a 2003 letter sent to a member of the Russian parliament by the Federal Border Service.

In recent years, Western attorneys for imprisoned oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky have been expelled or barred from Russia. Journalist Thomas de Waal, who wrote extensively on the strife-torn Caucasus in southern Russia, was denied a visa last year. A British lawyer, Bill Bowring, who worked with Russian plaintiffs appealing to the European Court of Human Rights, was turned back at a Moscow airport in 2005, as was William Browder, the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia, the following year.

Most of those who were denied visas appear to have crossed powerful interests or promoted Western-funded civic activism opposed by the Kremlin. Authorities accuse some nongovernmental organizations of attempting to foment the kind of political discontent that brought on street revolutions in neighboring Ukraine and Georgia.

"They are worried" about nongovernmental organizations and unions, Vladeck said. "We've seen a trend this year of more strikes and more organizing, and the authorities think this is a problem."