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

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.