MINSK, 28 April (BelTA) – The Belarusian Trade Union of Workers of Chemical Industry, Mining Industry, and Oil Industry has released a statement due to the resumption of U.S. economic sanctions against a number of major Belarusian state-run petrochemical enterprises, BelTA has learned.
The statement reads: “We would like to bindingly state that the sanctions, which foreign forces and some citizens call for, will primarily affect worker collectives, including their families. The loss of target markets due to the failure to execute contracts and lower revenues of the enterprises will make it impossible for the employers to fulfill provisions of the collective employment agreements. It will result in staff layoffs, lower social guarantees for veterans, women, and the youth. Those guarantees cater not only to workers of these enterprises but also to teachers, medics, university students, pensioners, and citizens in need of state social welfare. Who will these economic sanctions primarily affect and who will benefit from it? The current social partnership system in Belarus, the Labor Code, and pension laws for special working conditions, in which development the trade unions were directly involved, the labor dispute commissions that operate at these enterprises allow meeting specific needs of the local workers and make them protected unlike workers in many CIS and non-CIS states. Trade unions of many countries across the globe, their activists still fight for the achievements that workers of our enterprises already have.”
The Belarusian Trade Union of Workers of Chemical Industry, Mining Industry, and Oil Industry would like to remind that in conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic, the closure of international borders, the suspension of manufacturing and the reduction of earnings of workers in many countries across the globe Belarus has not allowed a drastic economic downturn, staff layoffs, and the curtailing of social security programs in the regions. The social partnership system has allowed preserving nearly all the additional privileges the collective employment agreements specify.
The statement continues: “We thank international associations of trade unions, foreign industry-specific trade unions, which support working Belarusians and share our primary values, values of the workers – the right to labor and decent salaries, safe working conditions. Our future is steadily operating enterprises and manufacturing facilities, steady jobs, decent salaries and safe working conditions, mutual respect and support for each other. On behalf of the workers, on behalf of more than 140,000 members of our trade union we are positively against economic sanctions and restrictions.”
