Low wages and no dignity: Russian workers reflect on the stark post-soviet choices in blue-collar employment

This Tale from the Field focuses on the interpretation by workers of the precarious nature of blue-collar formal employment in Russia. In an ethnographic sketch based on over two years in the field, I follow an individual, Sergei, as he relies more and more on informal and other sources of income instead of waged labour in the increasing number of multi-national enterprises which have come to Russia to set up factories. Why does Sergei, and many like him, still young or without memory of Soviet labour practices, ‘choose’ exit from the formal economy at the very moment when wages and conditions are finally increasing? Why is the informal economy as a ‘choice’ so important to blue-collar workers despite the hunger for labour in traditional production industry?