29 December, 2011On December 19-20 the two largest Russian union federations held a conference in support of the bill to completely ban agency labour.
RUSSIA: On December 19-20 the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FITUR) and the Confederation of Labour of Russia held an international conference in Moscow in support of the bill to completely ban agency labour, which is currently awaiting the second reading in the State Duma (lower chamber of the Russian parliament).
The bill was introduced in 2010 by Andrey Isaev, deputy president of the FITUR, and Mikhail Tarasenko, president of the Mining and Metallurgy Workers Union (MMWU), an IMF affiliate in Russia. In May 2011 the Russian Duma passed the bill in the first reading.
The conference, organized by the two largest union federations with support from the ILO, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) and the Moscow-based Center of Social and Labour Rights, was aimed at supporting the Isaev-Tarasenko bill and launching a massive campaign for its approval.
"The campaign we are launching today is not a crusade. It is essentially an attempt to explain to the Russian society that our bill will make the Russian Federation stronger and the lives of its people more decent," stated Mikhail Tarasenko.
The participants established four task forces to lobby the bill within Russian authorities, support it on the grass-roots level, solve various legal problems and organize communications and information support.
"We begin the new phase of the struggle to completely ban agency labour in Russia. We will carry out this campaign - and we will certainly win," concluded Boris Kravchenko, president of the Confederation of Labour of Russia.