20 November, 2011
To what extent is CAL an issue in Belarus?
At the moment, there is no legislation on employment agencies – our agencies are only for matchmaking.
Contract work came about a result of a Presidential Decree, which was issued in July 1999. The main purpose of the decree was to strengthen labour discipline – to use the additional contract benefits to single out the input of individual workers. The decree said it was imperative for employers to offer one to five additional holidays and salary rises of up to 50%. The law says the contract must be for a minimum of one year and a maximum of five years.
However, if the employee wishes, the contract can be for less than one year. Trade unions initially opposed the decree and lobbied against it, but it took effect and the results were quite interesting; employees were standing in line to switch to (fixed term) contracts. Back then, many people saw the contract system as a benefit, they only thought of the advantages. Contracts eventually expired, some were not extended, and later people saw the disadvantages as well. At the moment, the percentage of contract workers is quite high. In the pharmaceutical and petrochemical industry, there are 94% contract workers
Svetlana Klochok
How is your union dealing with these disadvantages?
As time moved on, there were additional legislative acts to change the contract system. Now after some years it transpired – through union efforts – that contracts must be evaluated by trade unions before they are signed. This is done to make sure that the union expert has the opportunity to compare the contract with the provisions in the collective agreement and with the labour law. In some industries, employers must extend contracts if no violations have been registered (by 3–5 years, if employees are highly skilled).
We had to take some employers to court when they failed to renew the contracts. Trade union legal inspectors monitor contracts around the country on an annual basis. In terms of improvements, we have helped to achieve a raise of 30-50% for most people, newcomers have one year contracts, but those with experience have longer contracts.
Our objective is to switch people to open ended employment. There is also a legal mismatch according to the new decree – the employer can switch any worker to an open-ended contract but there’s nothing that says they can retain their wages. Mothers with children under the age of five are entitled to five-year contracts, or their contract must be renewed until their child reaches the age of five.
What impact has privatisation had on the use of short term contracts?
If a foreign firm operates here, they have to adhere to Belarusian labour law. But it is possible for them to sign one-year contracts, this is not illegal. The worst thing with private companies is the short term of their contracts.
There are many mechanisms and avenues of influence that we are continuing to explore. There are new private companies where the salary is pretty good, but the employer doesn’t want workers to join a union.
Why is CAL a priority for your union?
Trade union people must forecast the future and imagine what could happen here – we should forecast the blows of the future.
How can the ICEM CAL project assist you in dealing with these issues?
We need information we get at seminars like this, we need to know about the mechanisms unions elsewhere are using. We need arguments to contradict some of what we hear.
We are grateful for the solidarity of the ICEM. In Belarus, we don’t have agencies but the world may change and we have to be ready.