Opposition leader Alexei Navalny founded the Promzona trade union for prisoners and prison staff. As stated in his social networks, he sent a notification about this to the director of the Federal Penitentiary Service and the head of the strict regime colony No. 6 in Melehovo, Vladimir Region.
“Well, why not? I am a prison worker. Seamstress. And other prisoners are also workers. And the guards are also employees of the colony. In terms of labor rights, we are no different. We can create a trade union to protect our rights,” Navalny wrote.
Now there is only one member in the trade union – Navalny himself. He said that the administration of the colony had already called the creation of the trade union "illegal" and officially warned him against committing the "crime" he was preparing.
“My first reward was the wild eyes of the administration staff. They thought I was joking when I talked about the union. And now they call it exclusively "illegal". Then they began to call me daily to the disciplinary commission and give me reprimands for all sorts of formal reasons: violation of the uniform, etc. Then a whole delegation came to my barracks and solemnly handed me a “warning about an impending crime” (in a carousel). It means that I am preparing it by creating a trade union. The convicts, to be honest, were even more scared of the trade union than the administration.” “Every time I talk about him, my killers say sadly: “Alexei, stop it, please. Because of you, we will never be released at all, and it will all end badly.
According to Navalny, the trade union has already won its first victory: the administration of the colony has replaced stools in the sewing shop with chairs with backs. “If you sit at a sewing machine for seven or eight hours a day, believe me, this is important,” the oppositionist wrote. The next step, he said, will be to replace stools with chairs throughout Russia.
Navalny's trade union also has its own Telegram channel .
On August 10, it also became known that Navalny filed a lawsuit against the correctional colony where he is serving his sentence, as its management refused to disclose data about the customer of the products that the prisoners produce.