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6 June, 2011
The newly-elected President of the Belarusian Independent Trade Union (BNP), Nikolai Zimin, sent his proposals on cooperation and social dialogue to the directors of enterprises in which BNP unions have membership and to leaders of local administrations recently. Most enterprises responded.
Zimin, elected to head BNP in April, told of his first steps to establish contact with both employers and government officials:
“We are willing to work within the frameworks of a social partnership. The first thing that has been done after our Congress was to send letters to the employers and to local authorities in the regions. We offered our cooperation as a partner.”
Nikolai Zimin
As reported by Zimin, positive responses came from the companies Belshina and Naftan. He said the BNP has already met the president of the Soligorsk Regional executive committee, Alexander Rimashevsky, and the acting director general of Belaruskali, Valery Kiriyenko. On 25 May, the BNP met with the deputy chairman of Belneftekhim, Anton Komyakov, on the implementation of a collective agreement by employers and trade unions.
“We plan to discuss the positions in the agreement, which, in our opinion, contain several shortcomings,” said Zimin.
“During the meetings, we exchanged views on a wide range of issues of mutual interest. We discussed the prospects of possible cooperation,” Zimin added. “During the meeting with the Soligorsk Regional executive committee led by Rimashevsky, we did not discuss the issue of registration of the primary company, created in a sewing factory, but we will deal this issue in due course. We discussed with him the issue of supplementary medical insurance for employees. Rimashevsky has assured us that the unions will not be deprived of attention, dialogue will continue, and all issues will be resolved at the negotiating table.”
BNP hopes to get answers on proposals on cooperation from the companies Grodno Azot and Mozyr refineries.