{"id":12362,"date":"2026-10-09T17:45:53","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T14:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.com.ua\/?p=12362"},"modified":"2026-10-09T17:45:56","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T14:45:56","slug":"nevydymyi-sprotyv-lvivskykh-promyslovykh-pratsivnykiv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.com.ua\/en\/nevydymyi-sprotyv-lvivskykh-promyslovykh-pratsivnykiv\/","title":{"rendered":"The Invisible Resistance of Lviv\u2019s Industrial Workers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This publication deliberately omits specific names, technologies, or other details to avoid causing issues for the author and the workers, whose supervisors might read this. If you are interested in learning more, please contact the author at<\/em> swigorvas@gmail.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six months ago, I graduated from university for the second time. With a bachelor\u2019s degree in computer science, I earned a master\u2019s degree in history. That also marked the end of my student activism in the Independent Student Trade Union Direct Action<\/em>, where I participated for three turbulent years. Following this, a simple question arose: what next, if politics shouldn’t end at the university gates?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was when I became interested in the concept of workers\u2019 inquiry<\/em>. It is neither journalistic reportage nor a sociological study. It is a political practice in which an activist takes a job in order to understand working conditions, conflicts, moods, forms of resistance, and the points from which a political organization might grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This idea is not new: various left-wing movements have developed similar approaches, including the Italian Operaists of the second half of the twentieth century.  For them, the factory was not only a place of exploitation but also a space where new forms of labor, solidarity, and conflict emerge. I, in particular, was inspired by the contemporary British collectives Angry Workers<\/em> and Notes from Below<\/em>. Angry Workers<\/em> worked and organized for several years in the industrial areas of West London, as brilliantly summarized in the book Class Power on Zero-Hours<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Little did I know about the people working in factories: how they work, what they fear, what they hate, and where they resist. That is why I chose a factory rather than, say, a caf\u00e9. I wanted to understand whether the modern industrial enterprise remains a place where collective power can emerge. In order to do this, I got a job at a large Lviv enterprise with several hundred employees that produces yeast-based feed and food products. Reality turned out to be far more complicated than I had imagined. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ihor Vasylets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Shop Floor, the Noise, and the Exhaustion<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When I first arrived at my workstation, I was struck by its scale and complexity: six floors of assorted tanks, pipes, pumps, and other machinery. It all resembled some strange, surreal dream. The control room and the administrative building, by contrast, looked perfectly ordinary and even a little \u201cIT-style\u201d modern. Yet the constant noise, at times exceeding 80 decibels, the heat, and the ammonia-and-rot smell made it impossible to forget where one was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The work consisted mostly of packing products, palletizing, and cleaning, despite the initial promises of a high-tech profession. Soon, I was sent to take samples from tanks and to manually add enzymes, vitamins, and other chemicals to the product, which sometimes resembled scenes from Breaking Bad<\/em>. Later, I was also assigned to the drying section, where the job was no longer just physical labor but also monitoring part of the drying process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shifts lasted 12 hours, with regular night shifts and overtime. It was physically hard: constantly carrying 25-kilogram boxes made my joints and fingers ache, I got cuts while packing, my nose clogged with dust, and my ears rang with a ceaseless hum. All of this \u201cspa treatment\u201d for 20,000 UAH a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Is Labor Disciplined?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My workshop had few people: up to twenty on the day shift and up to ten on the night shift. Most were production operators, mechanics, and automation technicians. There were almost no women on the shift, apart from the section supervisor, Mariia, and a few cleaners. The workers themselves explain this by saying that a woman \u201ccan\u2019t haul sacks,\u201d although, by their account, such attempts were made in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The section supervisor plays a key role in this story: she is the dog let off the leash to make the workers work the way management wants. Most workplace conflicts revolve around her.  Even in my first weeks, when I was only training and reading the company’s documentation, she constantly monitored every minute of my time to make sure I didn\u2019t look at my phone or wander off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s quite honest about her authoritarian approach. For example, she openly says that overtime is \u201cvoluntary-compulsory.\u201d Within the first few days she also told me that in the event of downtime at our plant, we could be assigned to work at another one, and that management would view a refusal as disloyalty. When, out of curiosity, I asked about the consequences of such disloyalty, she answered briefly: \u201cThere will be problems with draft deferment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watching my colleagues silently endure yet another round of Mariia\u2019s scolding, I remembered my days as an activist in the independent student union. There, we constantly protested, occupied university spaces, and agitated hundreds of people, annoying and defeating the administration. Here, however, a completely different, quiet atmosphere of discipline and humiliation prevailed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For most workers, draft deferment is very important. It is something the administration is well aware of and uses to intimidate them. Draft deferment has become a fundamentally new model of control: it keeps workers in a state of fear not only of being fired but also of possible military mobilization. It is somewhat reminiscent of serfdom, where the peasant could not leave the land he worked. The topic concerning the military enlistment offices and mobilization  comes up often: workers discuss how someone was caught or nearly caught.  One worker, Yulian, said he successfully escaped the authorities twice. However, spots for the draft deferment are limited, and not everyone gets one. That same Yulian, despite the promises, never received his draft deferment, which is why he eventually quit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the workers dislike the section supervisor and often curse her behind her back in the most varied terms. A worker named Borys once said she was needed only to \u201ccancel bonuses and hand out fines.\u201d Despite this, nobody openly opposes her. Usually they only listen in silence and obediently carry out orders. It is easier for a worker to endure a few minutes of reprimand or lose a bonus than to enter open confrontation with unpredictable consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only exception to this rule was an operator named Yevhen, who regularly slacked off and clashed with Mariia. For example, when she said that our bonuses for one of the months were given to us out of the management\u2019s goodwill rather than based on actual production figures, he asked ironically, \u201cShould we refund them?\u201d On another occasion, Mariia gave a strange order requiring additional\u2014and, in my opinion, completely unnecessary\u2014cleaning during downtime. Yevhen quietly murmured something along the lines of, \u201cThe circus has left, the clowns have stayed.\u201d She flew into a rage immediately: \u201cHow dare you?! Who do you think you\u2019re talking to?\u201d To which he replied, \u201cI say whatever I want. I have the right!\u201d Then Mariia pushed the \u201cmouthy\u201d worker hard, so I decided to step in. I pretended I hadn\u2019t heard the conversation and asked, \u201cWhat did he say exactly?\u201d And then all her anger turned on me. I was taken in for a sort of \u201cinterrogation\u201d: my knowledge of the production process was tested, while at the same time I was questioned about why I \u201copen my mouth,\u201d and so on. Afterwards, Yevhen thanked me for this, albeit small, act of solidarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I never fully understood why he behaved this way. When I asked other workers about it, however, the operator Artem told me that Yevhen may behave that way because \u201cthey [the managers] also depend on us.\u201d Yet his individual outbursts invariably ended in defeat: with written explanatory notes and apologies. Perhaps that\u2019s why the rest of the workers didn\u2019t dare to openly confront Mariia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Photo: Ihor Vasylets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Who Are Today\u2019s Workers?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Throughout my inquiry, I tried to understand who these people I\u2019m working with actually are. They are hard to fit into a single sociological category (which makes it even harder to fit me in there with my IT degree). They differ in age: there are a few young workers under 25, most are between 25 and 40, and some are older, 40 and above. They also differ in origin: although most are from Lviv oblast, there are also people from neighboring regions and internally displaced persons. I think it is worth mentioning that I noticed no conflict between \u201ceasterners\u201d and \u201cwesterners.\u201d Their educational background varies too: the workers included young biotechnology students, chemists, confectioners, artists, and even a former physical education (PE) teacher. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This diversity was best embodied by Yulian, a 49-year-old artist and theater director from Kharkiv, a former lecturer at one of the art universities,  whom fate first brought to work as a cleaner and later as an operator, just like me. Due to his tattoos, in the eyes of some colleagues, he looked more like a former convict than an artist. After hours on his feet, packing twenty-kilogram sacks on the conveyor belt, he never missed an opportunity to talk about cinematography, David Lynch, and music. This is why we quickly found common ground. Eventually, I even let him in on my inquiry plan, hoping to find a future activist. Yulian was exceptionally conscious and often talked about the problems at the factory: the lack of a bomb shelter, the exploitation of cheap labor, and the absence of trade unions. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, he left the enterprise following the deception regarding his draft deferment, so I lost a potential activist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The generational contrast was vividly illustrated by two workers on my shift, Borys and Valera, with whom I had the most chances to talk. Borys is a 52-year-old former entrepreneur who started as a radio technician, later built his own business, and earned hundreds of thousands of dollars on goods. However, after the economic crisis of 2013\u20132014, he lost everything and is still paying off debts, fearing that the tax authorities will one day audit his employees\u2019 records from ten years ago. He has a large family that he works to support, and he happily talks about his grandson. Perhaps it was his entrepreneurial experience that gave him a certain perfectionism: for example, when packaging the products, he carefully wipes down every jar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Valera is a 20-year-old biotechnology student who lives with his parents, has a girlfriend, and for now only dreams about the future. He sees nothing interesting for himself outside the factory: he says he would procrastinate at home anyway, so he\u2019d rather earn money. Next year he plans to go abroad to study. He has no grand ideas; he likes to enjoy simple things such as eating sushi or McDonald\u2019s, driving around, sleeping, and sometimes drinking a little right at the workplace. The other young workers are much like him in many ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These two biographies illustrate the difference in life priorities well. While the older generation works mostly for the sake of the family, the younger one is more oriented toward material things: money, food, housing, a car, and pleasure. Yet Borys and Valera have one thing in common: the need to earn money, since both of these things require it.  That is why most workers are interested in a higher salary, especially those who have to pay rent (for example, in my case, almost half of my wages, which amounted to 8,000 UAH per month, went on rent). There were exceptions, however: those who lived with their parents did not seek higher earnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among those most interested in raising wages was 45-year-old Vasia. He constantly agreed to extra shifts. As a higher pay grade employee, Vasia earned a relatively large sum, 30,000 UAH, and up to 40,000 UAH with overtime, which was quite a lot for a former PE teacher. I never found out exactly what he needed the money for; probably the fact that he has young children played no small part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reactionary Views and Radical Practices<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

During smoke breaks and lunches I heard various opinions; I listened to and asked the workers not only about their salaries, working conditions, and living situations, but also about more general matters. Their worldviews are a separate sphere, and one that is probably not very pleasant for the left. Borys, whom I mentioned earlier, hates Jews and is convinced that they rule the world. This is only one of many conspiracy theories prevalent among older workers. Stas, a 30-year-old former florist, is a committed misogynist and calls his wife a \u201cbaba\u201d (an old hag), although he previously worked in a female-dominated team. Oles, a 20-year-old, is convinced that trade unions don\u2019t work because \u201cthis isn\u2019t the twentieth century anymore\u201d and \u201cwe\u2019re not miners.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were plenty of such \u201creactionary\u201d opinions, and because of this, it would have been easy to become disillusioned with the workers and go home with nothing. But I was studying their practices rather than their beliefs, so I didn\u2019t worry much and tried not to argue.  Paradoxically, views can be very deceptive: Oles, who didn\u2019t believe in trade unions, had once organized a strike at another workplace, yet at this plant he participated in negotiations with the director. The opposite also happened: one young worker called the plant a \u201ccapitalist shithole,\u201d while he himself meekly earned money and saved up for \u201chis own business.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most apparent  gap between views and practices is evident in attitudes toward the war. On the one hand, everyone is a sincere patriot and loves Ukraine. On the other hand, most of them do not want to fight. It gets absurd: one of the workers has a tattoo of the Ukrainian coat of arms on his chest, but throughout the entire war he\u2019s been hiding from the military enlistment offices and criticizing them constantly. Some, like Borys, consider the war \u201cwrong\u201d because of modern dangerous technology and drones, while Stas holds the unusual view that \u201cthere [in Russia] are people just like us.\u201d Ultimately, this inconsistency is hardly surprising, considering that the factory, despite its declared support for Ukraine, avoids paying taxes through a Cypriot offshore company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Night Shift as a School of Sabotage<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After my probation period ended, I was assigned to night shifts, where I learned more about how workers operate and live without the direct supervision that everyone hates. It turned out that they often violated safety rules and regulations: they cleaned machinery while it was running, even though the instructions required them to shut it down first; they stole products; they slept and drank when there was less work. And all of this, apart from the alcohol and sleep, right in front of the security cameras!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Workers were not afraid of the cameras because, on the one hand, they believed that no one reviewed the footage except in critical situations, and on the other hand, even if something extraordinary happened, it would be difficult to identify the person responsible based on the footage. In one case, someone threw a metal spatula into a container of liquid product, and after a whole day of reviewing the footage, the culprit was never found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A spatula might have been thrown by accident, but much more serious incidents also occurred. Once, someone deliberately shut off one of the critical valves, halting production and nearly destroying an entire batch of goods worth a huge sum. This \u201cbioterrorist,\u201d in Mariia\u2019s words, was never found either! The workers themselves did not know who had done it or why, but they were sincerely grateful for the chance to get some extra sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the busiest periods the work was very hard: one had to spend almost the entire night or the whole day at the conveyor belt, loading and stitching bags of products. By the second month, I had injured my joints, my fingers were almost constantly numb, and my sleep schedule was disrupted. Often, the production process would not go according to plan: emergencies arose, machinery broke down, and we had to improvise and work under constant stress. The production plan could not be changed, or else bonuses were withdrawn and penalties were imposed. I was not the only one having a hard time. Valera, the senior operator, sighed one day: \u201cIt\u2019s okay, this shift will end one day\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Photo: Ihor Vasylets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Why Is There No Strike?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Sensing the dissatisfaction, I tried to encourage workers to reflect by asking questions about their health, workload, burnout, and free time outside of work. I was convinced that a simple, friendly conversation, instead of a lecture, could help them better understand what was happening to us. And it worked. After our conversation about health, Borys refused to work with hazardous alkalis and acids, demanded a respirator mask while working with dust, and reported to management every place in which one could get injured. Sometimes he was ignored, so I would step in, emphasizing that this wasn\u2019t just his personal problem. And it worked!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we first met, Valera was convinced that one must work with motivation and a positive attitude. This is what he urged everyone around him to do. However, through difficult shifts and our lunch conversations, he came to the conclusion that the best motivation is a paycheck, and he stopped \u201ctormenting\u201d his colleagues with calls to be motivated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet what united us most was not even shared problems in critical periods but shared secrets. When accidents happened at the plant, we\u2019d try to hide them from management to avoid unnecessary trouble.  We also took away \u201csurplus\u201d products, sometimes right under the security cameras, agreeing on who needed how much and how best to carry everything out. Valera half-jokingly described this situation as follows: \u201cWe [the workers] are always right, and the management is never right.\u201d Quite a level of class consciousness, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If workers so clearly understand that management exists to \u201ccancel bonuses\u201d and scold, and that they themselves are \u201calways right,\u201d then where are the union strikes and factory takeovers, as used to happen in the past and still occur elsewhere? There are various ways to answer this question. The most obvious answer is that everyday class consciousness is not enough and has to be brought in: tell people about trade unions, find activists in the workplace, demand collective bargaining, and organize a strike. And perhaps this is indeed the right path, one that can work, especially in critical moments: unpaid wages, mass layoffs, workplace injuries, and other horrors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the worker\u2019s own perspective, however, such a game is, at least under ordinary conditions, not worth the trouble. Young workers are often satisfied with wages due to the absence of rent expenses, while older workers are \u201cbribed\u201d by the combination of wages and draft deferment. A strike or any other form of collective resistance would jeopardize the advantages they have now. In other words, these proletarians aren\u2019t quite proletarians: they have something to lose. Therefore, existing problems (hard working conditions, exhaustion, or conflicts with management) are solved by other means. These include \u201cslacking off\u201d (doing their work carelessly, skipping parts of their tasks, or passing them on to the next shift) and individual \u201ctime theft\u201d through lateness, smoke breaks, stretching out lunch breaks, trips to the restroom, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was one exception to this pattern: the displaced people, who have to rent apartments. Working for a small salary is not an option for them. They were truly in a position where they had almost nothing to lose. As an activist, I found it fairly easy to befriend them: they, too, are angry and ready to take action. I even managed to invite one of them, Serhiy, to Direct Action<\/em> events in Lviv and introduce him to local activists. However, there were only two such people in my section. The other was Yulian, who, as mentioned above, had quit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unable to create a trade union, at least in the short term, I decided to cultivate what we have right here and now. I urged my colleagues to argue with management the \u201cright\u201d way, or at least not to stay on the sidelines of the conflict, which is a huge psychological help. Once, Vasia even shook my hand and thanked me simply for liking his message on Viber during an argument with management, because I was the only one who supported him at the time. I helped out with work when someone was running late or wanted to take a nap. For some of the older employees, this was sometimes crucial. In general, sleep at the workplace, even in the eyes of the workers themselves, such as Borys, remained something \u201cwrong.\u201d So my task was also to gradually, through conversations and actions, replace the employer\u2019s logic with our own. Not \u201cthe one who\u2019s tired is to blame,\u201d but rather the system of work organization that drives a person to such a state. Our logic, rather, was to be built on mutual support, respect for the individual, their work, and their fatigue.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSlacking\u201d and \u201ctime theft\u201d in fact originated long ago, under Soviet conditions of constant pressure to raise productivity and the absence of real trade unions. However, today, when trade union activity can be conducted more freely, these methods should evolve into a conscious strategy of non-compliance and, consequently, a reduction in production quotas as a form of resistance. In fact, if one can agree on such a strategy with two or three other shifts, isn\u2019t that the very beginning of a trade union?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Is to Be Done?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I would summarize my experience as follows: the working class has indeed changed. The modern industrial worker does not always correspond to the classic image of the proletarian. He may have a car, a house, family responsibilities, draft deferment, or a relatively stable salary.  However, this does not mean that exploitation has disappeared or that workers have simply accepted it. Dependence on wages, draft deferment, and a lack of experience in collective action prevent workers from fighting for their rights. Yet it is precisely under these conditions that we should look for new forms of worker resistance: not always through strikes or revolutions, but in everyday practices of mutual aid, evasion of excessive control, slowing the pace of work, and protecting one another from the arbitrariness of management. The former methods of struggle don\u2019t resonate much with the workers at this factory, but that does not mean they are not fighting at all. Rather, they do so in their own, less apparent way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My initial expectations did not come true. I had imagined two extremes: either the workers had completely given up and were unwilling to fight, or they were already ready to take to the barricades and were just waiting for the starting signal. The reality turned out to be much more nuanced. This is precisely why the workers’ inquiry is needed: to destroy such misconceptions! Who knows what conditions for struggle exist at other workplaces? Until you check for yourself, you can\u2019t say anything for certain.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inquiry also showed one possible path for building a trade union. This is not about an outdated approach of \u201ccoming in and explaining how to live properly.\u201d That approach is unlikely to work. Had I focused solely on the workers\u2019 \u201creactionary views,\u201d I would quickly have reached a dead end. What proved to be far more important, however, was actively listening to colleagues, offering emotional support, helping them at work, and gradually becoming part of their daily lives. This means not just talking about wages or working conditions, but also taking an interest in their families, attending birthday parties, staying in touch outside of work shifts, sharing Instagram reels, and generally being there for them not just during times of conflict. It is precisely from such seemingly small things that trust is born. And on that foundation, a strong network of solidarity can emerge, capable of withstanding the arbitrariness of management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In future inquiries I would improve two things. First, it is not a good idea to go alone: it is better to enter the workplace with a small group of at least two or three activists. Building a solidarity network this way will be much faster and easier than doing it single-handedly.  Second, I realized that conflicts should not be provoked too early, as happened in the case with Yevhen. Aside from emotional connection, which can be achieved in other ways, this accomplishes nothing and only prematurely turns the administration against you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was with this purpose that my comrades, who recently left Direct Action<\/em>, and I founded the initiative \u201cWorkers\u2019 Perspective.\u201d Its task is to conduct workplace inquiries, understand working conditions, and strengthen workers\u2019 resistance. We want to conduct our own inquiries at various workplaces, map working conditions across different sectors, and find and support people like Yulian and Yevhen, those who are already resisting, but do so spontaneously and in an unorganized manner. This article is not about a completed project that one can read and then forget. I hope it will inspire others to carry out their own inquiries at their workplaces, whether in collaboration with \u201cWorkers\u2019 Perspective\u201d or on their own initiative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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