ILO Calls on Lukashenko to Give Up Anti-Trade Union Practices :: Charter'97 :: News

Speaker of the workers’ group in the ILO Committee for the freedom of associations, deputy chair of this organization Ursula Engelen-Kefer and the chairman of the Federation of free trade unions of Russia, deputy chair of the Russian-Belarusian trade union coordination center Mikhail Shmakov, addressed Alexander Lukashenko with an open letter. Read below the full text of their address.

“Distinguished Mr.Lukashenko,

We are gravely concerned over the continued violation of workers’ rights in your country, despite the request of the ILO to respect the universal right for the freedom of associations.

To our deep regret, our Belarusian colleagues told us that instead your government intensified the anti-trade union policy via applying the decree#1804. An attempt to undermine the financial condition of trade unions not only violates the laws and agreements in your own country, but is also a flagrant interference into the trade unions’ affairs and their tariff autonomy. We urge you to step up all the necessary measures in order to ensure the full compliance of legal norms and the state laws with the fundamental ILO’s labor norms, ratified by Belarus, as well as to refrain from embarking on any measures, directed against the Belarusian trade unions.

Your country will remain isolated from Europe as long as you continue violating these principles, shared by other European states. We are calling on you to make the initial step to return Belarus back into Europe, that is to cancel the decree#1804, cease all other state activities, aimed at subverting the trade unions’ independence and enter into a genuine social dialogue with the trade unions and employers’ organizations in Belarus.

Sincerely yours,

Doctor Ursula Engelen-Kefer, Mikhail Viktorovich Shmakov.”