29 March 2024, Friday, 10:32
Support
the website
Sim Sim,
Charter 97!
Categories

Small business activist confirms market vendors’ plans for October 2 strike

The leader of a nascent small business association has confirmed that market vendors across the country will walk off the job in a one-day preemptive strike on October 2 to protest Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s restrictive edict.

The Belarusian leader's Edict No. 760 will ban sole entrepreneurs from hiring workers other than three family members on January 1, 2008, a measure that is likely to force nearly all sole entrepreneurs to register their businesses as legal entities or shut up shop.

“Massive raids on markets, unfounded penalties and confiscations of goods this summer became the last straw that forced sole entrepreneurs to lose their patience,” Viktar Harbachow, leader of the association named For Free Development of Enterprise, told BelaPAN.

Another purpose of the strike is to protest the lack of a law governing the small business sector. “Sole entrepreneurs don’t believe anything, they don’t understand what edicts and decrees exist in our country and on what basis they work. There’s no clear legislation. Sole entrepreneurs want to have one compact, clear, comprehensible and, what matters most, long-term law,” Mr. Harbachow said.

Up to 40,000 sole entrepreneurs based in 32 cities are expected to walk out on Tuesday.

Mr. Harbachow warned that sole entrepreneurs would consider staging a lengthier strike if the authorities did not review the edict following the preemptive walkout.

Perspektyva, a registered influential small business association, has refused to back the strike.

Follow Charter97.org social media accounts