Russian Professor as a Laborer in the Era of Ratings, Digitalization and the COVID-19 Pandemic
Russian Professor as a Laborer in the Era of Ratings, Digitalization and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Summary/Abstract: The traditional labor contract has actually ceased to be the principal legal document, regulating labor relations of Russian university teachers. The individual labor contract was reduced to the status of a mere ‘rudimentary’ annex to the so-called effective contract. The latter is legally non-existent and is not even mentioned in the Labor Code of Russia of 2001. The Covid-19 pandemic with its isolationist features aggravated the absurd paradigm change within the Russian Labor law. As a result, the illegitimate effective contract has virtually supplanted the regular labor contract. There may be traced three dominant features of the new labor regime, induced by the Covid-19 pandemic. Firstly, the said labor regime fosters social dissociation of former (ante-pandemic) colleagues with the inevitable harm to the social nature and human dignity of homo faber. Secondly, we can witness the strengthening of the external - via internet - exploitation of university teachers by a corresponding managerial staff and the merging of this exploitation with the academic staff’s self-exploitation. Thirdly, the said regime is responsible for virtual disappearance of difference between working days of university teachers and leisure hours, previously reserved for reading and research.

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