Consequences of the privatization process for population (1999)

At the invitation of the Foundation «Institute of City Economics (Moscow) «Femina» was part of the project «Protection of women during privatization» designed by Women, Law and Development (Washington). The project was implemented in Bulgaria, Russia, Poland and Ukraine.

In Naberezhnye Chelny 50 company managers were interviewed, 4 focus groups and 5 in-depth interviews were conducted.

«In practice, priority rights for workers’ collectives at privatized enterprises resulted in directors and upper managers getting hold of large amounts of shares.

Shares that emerged in the securities market belonged, by and large, to workers’ collectives. They had been bought cheap, workers often being forced to sell their shares. The women involved in the survey noticed on several occasions that this was largely facilitated by delayed wage payments as well as regular failures of the state to fulfill its social obligations. If children’s allowances or unemployment benefits had been paid in due time and women had thus felt more secure, the forced selling of shares would have been less in scope.

A group of KAMAZ female workers said they had never had a chance to experience the feeling of ownership:

«We have never and in no way felt ourselves shareholders, except when having these shares in hands for a while...»

«We had to do it for lack of money, we sold them dirt cheap. And they bought them dirt cheap. It’s not that we wanted to sell them, we just had to do it to survive.»

The survey findings are published by the international organization «Women, Law and Development».