Andrei Stryzhak: Workers mustn't answer for failures of management

Punishing Borisovdrev's workers for failures of the plant's management is collective responsibility.

Andrei Stryzhak, a coordinator of the youth network of the Electronic Industry Trade Union, spoke to charter97.org about the reduction of salaries for Borisovdrev's workers after the visit of Lukashenka.

“Salary cuts can be connected with the lack of money that was carelessly spent on 'modernisation', but on the other hand, it looks like collective responsibility. Decree No. 9 provides for signing an employment agreement for the longest period possible. A person works on the conditions that almost forbid him to quit and receives bonus payments for it. If the employer reduces salaries for all workers after receiving a rebuke from Lukashenka, the employee finds himself involved in collective responsibility for the performance of the entire plant. It is not set by laws, but it looks logical from the point of view of the employer. Maybe the plant officials applied this logics when they distributed responsibility among all employees,” the trade union activist noted.

Andrei Stryzhak notes it looks strange.

“A worker is responsible for his piece of work. If I do something wrong and break the machine, I will answer for it. But why should I answer for failures of the entire plant where thousands of people work each being responsible for his or her area of work? Shifting responsibility for the plant's results of work onto every worker is something like collective responsibility,” the coordinator of the youth branch of the trade union thinks.

The trade union activists turns attention to more sticks than carrots in labour relations and in the country.

“The more pressure is applied to people, the less they are interested in working well. Imagine the situation: I work well and expect to get 5-6 million rubles, but I receive 4 million instead of 6 due to failures of the plant's management. I decide not to work hard because I will receive miserable pay. It is a bad variant. Salary cuts cannot motivate workers. It is a punishment. But if you are not guilty, you are punished for nothing. A proper reaction will follow,” Andrei Stryzhak said.

We remind that after Lukashenka's scandalous visit to Borisovdrev wood processing plant salaries were cut allegedly for failures of “modernisation”.