Women drivers on the railway. Why aren't women hired as subway drivers? The thorny path to the rails

The Ministry of Labor will review the list of professions permitted only for men

The Ministry of Labor will re-examine the issue of whether women can work as navigators and subway drivers. The current list of professions prohibited for women, adopted in 1974 and confirmed in 2000, will be revised

At the processing plant at the mine (Photo: Anatoly Strunin/TASS)

Sailors' appeal

The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection will update the list of 456 jobs in which the use of female labor is prohibited. “The Ministry of Labor is working to update the list, including reducing the number of professions in which the use of women’s labor is limited,” says the letter signed by Tatyana Zhigastova, deputy director of the Department of Labor Conditions and Safety. RBC has a copy of the document at its disposal. The department explains the need to reduce the list by changes in production technologies and “social and hygienic working conditions” in many areas.

The letter is addressed to the head of the Russian Trade Union of Seafarers, Yuri Sukhorukov. The organization previously complained to the government that women could not serve as ship crew members. “We had a congress in November, where this issue was discussed. We sent a resolution to the prime minister, the prime minister forwarded it to the Ministry of Labor,” Igor Kovalchuk, first deputy chairman of the trade union, told RBC.

As follows from the resolution, girls who were trained at nautical schools and river technical schools, but could not get a job, complained to the trade union. Activists demanded to eliminate discrimination and oblige employers to create safe working conditions for workers of any gender.

The department “agrees to revise this list for now in terms of which professions on the list are outdated, which have disappeared, and in which working conditions have changed,” says Kovalchuk. “The ministry is not yet ready to conceptually consider the question of whether a woman can decide for herself whether she should work in a mine,” he noted.

Now the Ministry of Labor is collecting proposals from trade unions and experts, and, together with doctors, is “working to determine the factors influencing a woman’s reproductive health,” the department’s press service confirmed to RBC.

UN decision

The UN in March 2016 considered the existence of 456 jobs banned by the government for women as discrimination. This was stated in the decision on the complaint of Russian woman Svetlana Medvedeva, published on the website of the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

Medvedeva graduated from the Samara River College in 2005, where she studied water transport driving. When she tried to get a job at the Samara River Passenger Enterprise, she was refused, citing a government list.

Medvedeva applied for the position of motor mechanic and helmsman. Sanitary standards and rules classify this work as harmful, due to the fact that “the noise parameters exceed the permissible level.” However, the legislation does not say what the danger of noise is specifically for women’s health, Medvedeva pointed out. She went through three courts, and her complaints were rejected at all levels.

The UN Committee agreed that the complainant had been discriminated against. He also pointed out that the harm to women from working on ships has not been scientifically proven, and the ban on heavy work for women “reflects persistent stereotypes regarding the roles and responsibilities of women and men in the family and in society.”

Medvedev’s rights were never restored, her lawyer Dmitry Bartenev told RBC. According to him, the courts do not take the decision of the UN committee into account, citing the fact that it is not binding on Russia. The Ministry of Labor explained to RBC that they do not agree with the committee’s conclusions, since according to international law, “the adoption of special measures aimed at protecting motherhood is not considered discriminatory.”

In 2012, the Constitutional Court refused to consider the complaint of St. Petersburg resident Anna Klevets, who sought the right to work as a metro driver. “The implementation of the principle of legal equality cannot be carried out without taking into account the generally recognized social role of women in procreation,” the decision said.

Position of human rights defenders

The ban on hiring women for 456 types of jobs was previously criticized by human rights activists. As the Memorial anti-discrimination center pointed out in its report, the list includes a number of “interesting and prestigious professions”: for example, women cannot be subway drivers, divers, firefighters, communications tower installers, or engage in geological exploration. At the same time, the harm from this or that work is often not obvious. There are also professions that are objectively harmful to the health of any person (in particular, work on nuclear submarines), but they are allowed for men.

The list of jobs prohibited for women has not changed since 1974, and no one has conducted scientific research confirming their harmful effects on the female body, the Consortium of Women's Non-Governmental Organizations indicated in its report. In particular, that women are prohibited from work that involves lifting weights of more than 10 kg up to twice an hour. At the same time, “10 kg is the average weight of a one-year-old child, whose lifting and moving by the mother is in no way limited by the state,” the consortium’s report stated.

Allowing women to work that are considered difficult could increase employment and provide the opportunity to earn on an equal basis with men, lawyer Bartenev is sure: “Restrictions should be rare and relate to exceptional situations when the use of female labor may involve serious health risks. But the priority should still be a woman’s right to decide whether she agrees to these risks or not.”​

Editorial The Village continues, with the help of experts, to answer the strangest questions about life that city residents ask.

There are many women among the metro employees: they are on duty in booths at the escalators, sell tokens, wash floors at stations, but they cannot become highly paid drivers. The Village asked the press secretary of the St. Petersburg metro and the girl who, through the court, tried to gain the right to work as a driver, about the reasons for such discrimination.

YULIA SHAVEL

press secretary of the St. Petersburg metro

There is a decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated February 25, 2000 No. 162 “On approval of the list of heavy work and work with harmful or dangerous working conditions, during which the use of women’s labor is prohibited.” Number 374 in this resolution is “the driver of the electric train and his assistant.” That is, the rule was not written by the metro: it was adopted at the federal level.

The only female brigade of drivers in the Leningrad metro was formed in 1955. There were four drivers. One of those women, Natalya Donskaya, is alive. According to her stories, it was very difficult work.

Working as a driver, in addition to enormous physical stress, also involves psychological stress. Let’s take modern rolling stock: in a critical situation, the decision must be made by the driver. There are difficult cases: a person is hit by a train - the driver informs the dispatcher and then he himself urgently begins to pull the person out from under the train. It is difficult to imagine that a woman - both physically and psychologically - could do such work. One more point: a long stay underground has a negative impact on a woman’s physical condition, in particular her reproductive function.

"For this job and not every man will be taken: the main requirement isgood health!"

Personally, the ruling seems fair to me. Every day I see how difficult the work of machinists is. Yes, there are strong women who operate cranes on construction sites and work behind the wheel of taxis. Yes, trains are prepared for departure not by drivers, but by mechanics and other service personnel. But emergency situations in the metro are among the most difficult in the world. And the drivers are responsible for all the people - passengers - that are behind them: these are six to eight cars.

Not every man will be hired for this job: the main requirement here is good health. Unfortunately, today's youth have many problems. So if a healthy 50-year-old man comes to us, we will take him. In the metro, there is a high turnover among machinists: it happens that men who have worked for 20 years develop health problems - then they are transferred to another job, for example, metalworking.

In recent years, none of the women, except St. Petersburg resident Anna Klevets, have applied to us for employment as a driver. There are other vacancies for women in the metro.

ANNA KLEVETS

It was the end of 2008, I was then studying at the Faculty of Law. I needed additional income. I couldn’t get a job in my specialty because work experience was required everywhere. And in the metro there was a constant announcement that male driver assistants were needed. Having legal knowledge, I understood that this was a discriminatory requirement, since according to the Constitution, men and women have equal rights in choosing a profession. I decided to apply to the Metropolitan, and they refused to hire me: they verbally explained that they only hire men.

I decided to go to court because I understood: women are discriminated against based on their gender. As a result, she went through all the courts of first and second instance and reached the Supreme Court. I had two cases in parallel: the first was a refusal to hire, I went through the district court of St. Petersburg and reached the Supreme Court. Secondly, I appealed the clause of the government resolution, according to which women are prohibited from working as electric train drivers. This statement was immediately addressed to the Supreme Court. Then there was an appeal to the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights. The latest appeal is to the UN Committee for the Protection of Women from Discrimination. So far there is no response from them. All other authorities refused me and supported the government resolution. The European Court of Human Rights declared my complaint inadmissible - they wrote that there were no violations of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights.

"Eat many harmful professions, in whichwomen work."

In the case of Resolution 162, the government’s logic is as follows: this is concern for women’s reproductive health. Those harmful factors that exist in the metro can affect the health of a woman as an expectant mother. Factors include vibration, noise, poor lighting and others.

There are many harmful professions in which women work. For example, painters who do not receive as high a salary as electric train drivers, but at the same time work in hazardous conditions. There is an opportunity to get more, and this is a choice that a woman should have. If she herself decides that she does not want to work with such harmful factors, she will not go into this profession. There are women who have already given birth, women who do not plan to become mothers - they should get the right to be a driver and receive a decent salary.

Why are there no women truck drivers or electric train drivers in Russia? The point is not that women do not want to study for these professions, but that in Russia there is a government decree that directly prohibits hiring women in more than 400 professions. Vedomosti selected the most interesting of them.

Women in Russia are not prohibited from fishing; restrictions apply only to coastal fishing “on hand-pulled cast nets, ice fishing on cast nets, set nets and vents.”

2. Electric train driver

Women are prohibited from working not only as drivers of electric trains, steam locomotives, diesel locomotives, and diesel trains, but also as their assistants.

3. Bus driver

Women are prohibited from working as bus drivers with more than 14 seats. The restriction does not apply to urban and suburban transport.

In Russia there cannot be female boatswains, sailors, skippers and mates.

5. Luggage and hand luggage porter at the airport

If you see a woman moving your luggage or hand luggage at the airport, know that this is a violation of Russian laws.

Women are not allowed to work on tractors, trucks, snowmobiles, or bulldozers.

Stump remover and forest feller are not female professions.

Restrictions for women apply when dealing with cattle and pigs.

Editorial The Village continues, with the help of experts, to answer the strangest questions about life that city residents ask.

There are many women among the metro employees: they are on duty in booths at the escalators, sell tokens, wash floors at stations, but they cannot become highly paid drivers. The Village asked the press secretary of the St. Petersburg metro and the girl who, through the court, tried to gain the right to work as a driver, about the reasons for such discrimination.

YULIA SHAVEL

press secretary of the St. Petersburg metro

There is a decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated February 25, 2000 No. 162 “On approval of the list of heavy work and work with harmful or dangerous working conditions, during which the use of women’s labor is prohibited.” Number 374 in this resolution is “the driver of the electric train and his assistant.” That is, the rule was not written by the metro: it was adopted at the federal level.

The only female brigade of drivers in the Leningrad metro was formed in 1955. There were four drivers. One of those women, Natalya Donskaya, is alive. According to her stories, it was very difficult work.

Working as a driver, in addition to enormous physical stress, also involves psychological stress. Let’s take modern rolling stock: in a critical situation, the decision must be made by the driver. There are difficult cases: a person is hit by a train - the driver informs the dispatcher and then he himself urgently begins to pull the person out from under the train. It is difficult to imagine that a woman - both physically and psychologically - could do such work. One more point: a long stay underground has a negative impact on a woman’s physical condition, in particular her reproductive function.

"For this job and not every man will be taken: the main requirement isgood health!"

Personally, the ruling seems fair to me. Every day I see how difficult the work of machinists is. Yes, there are strong women who operate cranes on construction sites and work behind the wheel of taxis. Yes, trains are prepared for departure not by drivers, but by mechanics and other service personnel. But emergency situations in the metro are among the most difficult in the world. And the drivers are responsible for all the people - passengers - that are behind them: these are six to eight cars.

Not every man will be hired for this job: the main requirement here is good health. Unfortunately, today's youth have many problems. So if a healthy 50-year-old man comes to us, we will take him. In the metro, there is a high turnover among machinists: it happens that men who have worked for 20 years develop health problems - then they are transferred to another job, for example, metalworking.

In recent years, none of the women, except St. Petersburg resident Anna Klevets, have applied to us for employment as a driver. There are other vacancies for women in the metro.

ANNA KLEVETS

It was the end of 2008, I was then studying at the Faculty of Law. I needed additional income. I couldn’t get a job in my specialty because work experience was required everywhere. And in the metro there was a constant announcement that male driver assistants were needed. Having legal knowledge, I understood that this was a discriminatory requirement, since according to the Constitution, men and women have equal rights in choosing a profession. I decided to apply to the Metropolitan, and they refused to hire me: they verbally explained that they only hire men.

I decided to go to court because I understood: women are discriminated against based on their gender. As a result, she went through all the courts of first and second instance and reached the Supreme Court. I had two cases in parallel: the first was a refusal to hire, I went through the district court of St. Petersburg and reached the Supreme Court. Secondly, I appealed the clause of the government resolution, according to which women are prohibited from working as electric train drivers. This statement was immediately addressed to the Supreme Court. Then there was an appeal to the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights. The latest appeal is to the UN Committee for the Protection of Women from Discrimination. So far there is no response from them. All other authorities refused me and supported the government resolution. The European Court of Human Rights declared my complaint inadmissible - they wrote that there were no violations of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights.

"Eat many harmful professions, in whichwomen work."

In the case of Resolution 162, the government’s logic is as follows: this is concern for women’s reproductive health. Those harmful factors that exist in the metro can affect the health of a woman as an expectant mother. Factors include vibration, noise, poor lighting and others.

There are many harmful professions in which women work. For example, painters who do not receive as high a salary as electric train drivers, but at the same time work in hazardous conditions. There is an opportunity to get more, and this is a choice that a woman should have. If she herself decides that she does not want to work with such harmful factors, she will not go into this profession. There are women who have already given birth, women who do not plan to become mothers - they should get the right to be a driver and receive a decent salary.

“When I was in the eighth or ninth grade, my friend and I were returning from Moscow by train. And one thing was written on the board, and another on the train itself. Well, who can I ask? We went to the driver to ask. There were no curtains in the cabin - and everything was clearly visible, all the switches were on the panel behind him. I don’t know what drove me, but I asked: “Why do you need so much?” - “Are you really interested?” - "In fact yes". He says: “Well, come in, I’ll tell you.” And since then I decided that I wanted to work on trains.

After the eleventh grade, I came to the admissions office of the 52nd Railway College of Moscow. There was a very nice woman sitting there, who later became my industrial training master. She was extremely surprised when I said that I had come to submit documents to become an assistant driver. I called the deputy director. He says: “It’s not allowed! The charter clearly states that young men are accepted.” I say: “Show me,” why should I just turn around and leave? He brought it and showed it. I say: “It’s not written here: exclusively young men.” In general, in the end they offered a compromise: to take me for training in two specialties - an assistant driver and a mechanic. They persuaded me, saying that there was no other way out. Therefore, despite the fact that it takes ten months to study to become an assistant driver, I spent two years and ten months in college.

Photo: Anton Berkasov

I was initially warned that there would be no problem with train practice, but it would be difficult to find a job in my specialty. At first I got a job as a mechanic - by the way, this didn’t scare me at all. And then an auditor on train safety came to our college - it was the last year - to give a lecture. And just before that, I went for an interview at the Pererva depot, and there the management really warmed to me. And I approached the auditor: they say, I have a dream. He says: “I’ll ask the road manager.” And indeed, he comes to the next lesson and says: “You have been given permission.” So I got a job at the Pererv depot as an assistant driver on a regular commuter train - we call them green.

Women are not allowed to work as machinists, not so much because of the hard physical labor, but because of electromagnetic radiation. There is government decree 162, which stipulates harmful or dangerous working conditions: noise, vibration, magnetic fields. From this point of view, it doesn’t matter whether you work as an assistant driver or as a driver. Everything depends on the conclusion, examination, certification of the workplace. At the same time, modern trains, as a rule, already meet safety requirements. Harmful production factors on the rolling stock on which I work are kept to a minimum.

All drivers and assistants are assigned in pairs - it is very rare when you do not work with your own driver. I didn’t have any special interviews; My colleague Vladimir did not have an assistant at that moment, and I was simply informed that I would be working with him. There were no jokes, of course. He is a very polite and reserved person. In general, my colleagues are well-mannered people with high moral principles. I'm lucky with the people who surround me. I have never asked or even hinted at any help, but it happens that a person has the opportunity to do some rougher work for me and offers: “Maybe I can help you?” Or he doesn’t even ask, but does it. Simply due to upbringing. Here you see a grandmother dragging a heavy cart - yes, she will drag it herself, but you will come and help, if you are well brought up, right? It’s the same here: if a person is not busy with anything else, if he doesn’t have to drop everything and run, why not help him? At the same time, I never take it for granted - I must be able to do everything myself, and I know how to do it. But it's nice, of course.

Photo: Anton Berkasov

The locker room in the depot is shared - the closets were specially made for me to create, roughly speaking, a nook. You just go in, turn around, and that’s it - no one sees me, I don’t see anyone, no problems at all. Yes, even if there were, I do not suffer from prejudices - there are always other rooms where you can go to change clothes. After all, I came to work where initially there were only men, and I have to adapt to them, and not they to me. I am absolutely calm about profanity; it doesn’t hurt my ears. I can simply turn a deaf ear - I hear what needs to be heard, but I don’t hear what is not needed. And even if someone suddenly doesn’t want to work with me, it won’t bother me at all. If there were a lot of women, if there was a proven practice, then it would be a different matter. And this is a normal reaction of people; if I were them, I would probably react in exactly the same way. We can talk a lot about kindness and freedom from prejudice, but we are talking about serious work! It's not just the two of us sitting in the cockpit. Everyone has their own responsibilities, and if I don’t trust the driver, and the driver doesn’t trust me, it’s very difficult. True, I always quickly found a common language with people. I didn’t just come to hang out, I really love my job.

Passengers are much more surprised. Recently, the protection of the lighting circuits was triggered - that is, the light in the car is on, but, roughly speaking, at full strength. To repair it, you need to open the cabinet with the equipment, which is located in the vestibule of the car. I approached, and just as I was taking hold of the lock, suddenly a woman of retirement age runs out, alert: “Who are you? I'll call the police now! What are you doing here? Who is she?" In general, I showed her the documents, I even wanted to offer her to look at my electrical safety certificate, but she only left when I finished work and the light came on. And if a man was doing the repairs, it seems to me that she wouldn’t even pay attention.

Photo: Anton Berkasov

We met the groom at the depot - he is a driver, we were in the same team on the green train. When we started dating, his attitude towards my work, frankly, changed for the worse. Because I’m 27 years old, I need to think about other things - about family and so on. Of course, working as an assistant driver while pregnant is unacceptable - from the first day, if it suddenly becomes known that I am pregnant, I will be obliged to switch to light work. But we learned not to discuss it, we just agreed that, in principle, we don’t talk about working at home. We try to pretend that none of us serves on the railway. Well, what else to do? If I don’t agree to comply with his requests to change jobs and get an office job, shouldn’t we break up because of this? I have a right.

Initially, I just wanted to do what I wanted. And when I achieved this, female people began to contact me (Yulia’s wording. - Note ed.), who also want to work on the railway. Honestly, it’s not that I’m dissuading them, but I can’t tell them: “Oh, everything is really great, come and work.” I think I should explain that this is really not easy. But if people say that they are ready to go to the end, then I am happy to help them. There is an interesting pattern: those who directly drive electric trains simply explain that it is difficult. They don’t dissuade, but ask: are you capable of this? And there are people who are not at all in the subject, who have a mountain of prejudices in their heads, they say, there are rude men sitting there, pulling levers, where are you going?! Such people tried and are still trying to “calm me down.” But these are really just prejudices. I probably know five girls who dream of becoming a driver’s assistant. And I, of course, want it to be easier for them.”