You Should Work, And We Will Undress You Ourselves

Sometimes it makes you wonder how artful the authorities have become in “laying all the blame on someone else.”

For example, recently Prime Minister of Belarus Andrei Kabiakou said in a live ONT TV channel broadcast that if Belarusians want high salaries, they should work better.

As said by the Prime Minister, “wages are to grow proportionally with labour efficiency increase, not in advance of it.”

– That is why, if we want higher wages, we should work with higher productivity, – Andrei Kabiakou said.

The logic is quite understandable, and in any other situation it would not generate questions. If you want to be paid more – labour with patience! What could be easier?

But, as a matter of clarification, who should work hard, according to the Premiere?

Does it concern workers of MAZ or Atlant plants, who had been transferred to a work for two thirds of a day? They would be happy to work – but their work is not needed by anyone.

Or does it concern workers of Gomselmash, where 13,000 employees were placed on forced unplanned leave in March? It is unlikely that it had been their desire, and they planned to go to the Maldives massively.

Or have workers of Pinsk plant of small tools and equipment, Brestmash, Babruisk machine-building plant, Strommashina, which work a shorter working week, had written a collective request not to tire them out by a 5-day working week?

Or have BelAZ workers decided that a pay of Br3.5 million is more than enough for them?

Or at least what it should look like proceeding from Kabiakou’s logic. According to authorities, Belarusians are to blame themselves for their minuscule wages, as they do not want to work, and not those who had brought the country to the state when it is almost impossible to earn keep.

When from important rostrums Aliaksandr Lukashenka urged Belarusians to get undressed and work, many people treated his words as a joke, which triggered an amusing flash mob. But it is not so amusing really. And this advice is obviously a long overdue thing to do. As if we look at the economic situation in Belarus, Belarusians have been naked for quite a long time. And it would be more correct to say: “You should work, and we are going to undress you ourselves.”

Pavel Dzmitryieu, Salidarnasts