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25 April, 2011
The ICEM-affiliated Belarusian Independent Trade Union (BNP) conducted a heated Congress in Soligorsk on 16 April, resulting in a change of union leadership. After a day-long debate that resulted in a narrow – 32-29 – no-confidence vote for the current leadership, the body elected Nikolai Zimin as chairman.
Zimin, a mineworker, is a machine operator employed at state-owned JSC Belaruskaliy and works in the company’s potash and potassium chloride operations near Soligorsk. He is a ten-year trade union activist and had served as secretary-treasurer, and then deputy chairman of BNP. He defeated incumbent Vasiliy Korobov and challenger Sergei Antusevitch in a three-way race, with Zimin getting nearly three times the vote total as runner-up Antusevitch.
In the ballot for deputy chairman, incumbent Nikolai Novik withdrew his nomination after the no-confidence vote, and Antusevitch and Yuriy Shvets, an oilworker at Gazprom’s Mozyr refinery, were elected co-deputy chairmen. Aleksandr Korolev was elected secretary-treasurer.
BNP is affiliated to the Belarus Congress of Democratic Trade Unions, and both the fledgling national labour centre and BNP face continual suppression and harassment at the hands of Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko and the Belarus Federation of Trade Unions (FPB).
BNP is engaged in serious struggles to gain rightful trade union recognition from Belarusian regional authorities, including at Delta Style, a garment maker (see ICEM report) and at OJSC Naftan, a polymer and chemicals operation.