Attack on Rights: Case Of Ukraine

Field: Social Sciences (Social Sciences)

6 | International Union Rights | 28/2 FOCUS | A CHANGING POST-PANDEMIC WORLD FOR LABOUR Attack on Rights: Case Of Ukraine The government is trying to radically reshape the social map of Ukraine for new business owners who are to come as a result of recently announced largescale privatisation, through direct liquidation or indirect reduction of guarantees, benefits and compensations. From 1992 to 2018, 133,000 facilities were privatised in Ukraine. During that time, the public sector shrank to 16 percent. 5/6 of the country’s economic potential was privatised for less than 11 billion USD, which is only 13 percent of Ukraine’s nominal GDP in 1990. Due to the new wave of privatisation, the state should have no more than 5 percent of ownership. Today, according to various estimates, and this is the verdict of privatisation, ‘only 7 percent of new highly productive jobs’ are created. Seven percent! The rest of the jobs are for wages of 150-250 USD a month. This is a shameful level for workers of any country. This is the bottom of industrial and agricultural production. Ukraine became a country that the government promotes as a place with cheap labour that pretends to be its competitive advantage. In fact, it is a disgrace to the model ‘the market will adjust everything and put in its place’. Instead of attracting investment, there is an unprecedented outflow of labour, which is also generated by an unprecedented attack on labour rights and institutions. As a result, a significant decline in trade union membership, and workers’ coverage by collective agreements, and, consequently, a decline in their income and marginalisation. At the same time, under pressure from new and future owners of enterprises subject to privatisation, the state intervention in the labour market continues to intensify. The government is trying to ‘clean up’ the labour and trade union laws and is even considering denouncing a number of ratified conventions that are hindering implementation of their plans. The goal is to enrich 3 percent of people who own 90 percent of all resources and financial assets of the country. The remaining 97 percent are those from whom they want to take the last money. All draft laws on ‘cleaning up’ the labour and trade union laws are based on the draft Law of Ukraine ‘On Labour’ (reg. No 2708), which provided that the main issues of labour relations between the employee and the employer should be addressed in the employment contract, which will take precedence over the law. Full self-regulation of labour relations and deprivation of trade unions of the human rights protection function is enshrined in the draft law ‘On Amendments to Labour Code of Ukraine on Regulation of Certain Issues of Labour Relations’ registered in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (reg. No 5054-1). In order to liberalise and debureaucratise labour relations, and simplify doing business, the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine developed the draft law of Ukraine ‘On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Deregulation of Labour Relations’. This draft law narrows workers’ rights guaranteed by national and international laws, which are declared an ‘unnecessary burden on business’, expands grounds for dismissal of the employee by the employer, for deprivation of his/her collective protection, for replacement of legal guarantees regulating work and leisure conditions, which can be oral. The trade unions will be removed from the procedures for agreeing on change in working conditions, recreation and working hours. After all, as follows from the explanatory note to the draft law, ‘the employer has to spend a significant amount of financial resources and time to ensure compliance with these requirements of the law’. The draft law ‘On Stimulating Development of Digital Economy in Ukraine’ separates the workers of transnational gig platforms into a separate group, which is deprived of any guarantees for remuneration, protection against illegal dismissal, and right to conclude collective agreements. The content and scope of existing guarantees and rights of workers to safe and healthy working conditions, their proper social protection in this area will be significantly narrowed. The next draft law of the Ministry of Economy ‘On Safety and Health of Workers at Work’ does...