The history of unions have a few root causes, in England it was centuries of social class structure leading to heavy industry abusing, even killing, their workers until they. the workers, organised revolts agains their employers.
In Russia there was an even longer history of abuse dating all the way back to the Mongol invasion but the impetus to social change was driven by intellectuals returning from overseas educations with a new theory of economic reform that was then coopted by people responding to the abuse of the tax paying middle class and the peasant class farmers by the Tsar.
wheeuu .. that sentence just grew that way .. how do these differences mutate into organisational structures? In England there is a long history of pragmatism, cooperation, and consensus based decision making that led to people in union meeting halls pooling their knowledge of whom they could ask to do certain functions and/or certain people stepping up to just take over a task that needed doing. Socialism was a useful tool for those organising unions, but was not driving the movement as much as the need for improvements in industrial safety and wages.
The Russian model of social reform was created by aristocratic intellectuals who had no interest in consensus building and the thugs they got to act as their enforcers, helped along by the dire threat that Germany posed in both world wars. And no I am not ignoring the thousands of Russian people from all walks of life who were devout believers in Socialism and were desperate for a solution to the harsh treatment they had at the hands of the Tsar, the aristocrats, the army, and the tax collectors.
The modern day Russian government is largely modelled on the tribute state model that the Mongols installed at sword point and so is very much a top down structure with one Strong Man at the very top. The second important factor is that military force was always used by the powerful against the weak and everybody got used to the model of command from above, subservience from below.
Stalin showed how to use the communist party to control the unions and the government to solidify his rule, and Putin has proven to be a master of the modern version. The party dictates how the unions actually operate to create the illusion of grass roots support for what the ones at the top want to do. And the unions offer a huge number of well paying positions as rewards for people the leaders want to repay for favours rendered. With union membership being a requirement, and party membership being highly desirable, unions are clearly organised to support the purposes of the few at the top of the heap and offer little or no benefit to the working people.
Please note the the reason that unions often become arms of organised crime is the alignment of people organising a crime ring as a response to chronic inequities and prejudicial treatment with worker groups that organise to obtain bargaining power against the industries that are exploiting them. The criminals exploit the power that successful unions create, and thus the money they control, in a sort of beneficial exploitation. When it is a benevolent hijacking at least .. unfortunately the mob is not known for its kindness to those it sucks the blood from.
