Updated at 17:53,27-03-2024

Belarusian workers lose their patience

Belsat

More and more often employees of Belarusian state-owned enterprises demand to respect their rights. As a result, they face a misunderstanding and repressions from management.

In early January, employees of the Agricultural Construction Complex in Vitebsk applied for withdrawal from the official trade union. In response repressions from the company's management have begun. At the factory "Granite" more than one hundred employees left the official trade union and started to establish an independent miners' union.

Managers of enterprises, first of all, try to get rid of the most active workers. Those who loudly calls for the law execution, simply are not prolonged a contract.

This happened with a bricklayer of Mogilev's "Promzhilstroy" Alexey Pavlovski, an independent trade union activist. 15 of his colleagues signed a letter which stated that, if the contract with the activist is not prolonged, they will resign after him and leave the official trade union. However, a preventive conversation and threats from the leadership have been forced workers to withdraw their signatures.

A similar story has Oleg Aksenov, Mogilev house-building plant worker and activist of the Belarusian Christian Democracy. Aksenov and his colleagues demanded a change in hazardous working conditions at the factory. The workers have even begun to create a strike committee. But the administration has taken actions against the over-active employee. The official version of his dismissal - failure to find common language with the staff and the enterprise's administration.

"It's an absolute lie, rather, not absolute: with the administration, I actually couldn't find common language, - Aksenov laughs. - Why the strike committee? The contract paragraph 4.2, which says that, if the administration fails to perform its duties, an employee has the right to establish trade unions, including that of a strike. We didn't demand anything which is not written in the contract. But something we were still able to do. Thus, some work on the issue of elimination of dangerous job places has begun, however, the enterprise involved in this not really strong, but simply allowed technicians to fix something there", Oleg Aksenov says.,