Kaliningrad dock workers win in European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights has decided that the Russian state must pay EUR 2,500 per person to 32 dock workers in Kaliningrad. The case came before the court because Kaliningrad Sea Commercial Port had been accused of discrimination by the Russian Dock Workers’ Union’s local branch in Kaliningrad. The union members in question had been fired after a strike in October 1997. They took their case to court several times in local courts but without any result and, during the same period, the union lost several members. Neither ITF, the International Transport Workers’ Union, nor the municipality of Kaliningrad were able to help the dock workers. In 2001, the dock workers took their case to the European Court of Human Rights.