"Spongers" VS. "Shirkers" in Power

Belarusians are outraged by Lukashenka's updated decree.

The Ministry of Labor tells about the project of the updated decree on "spongers", which stirred up the whole of Belarus in the spring and became the catalyst for large-scale protest actions.

The new edition of the scandalous document assumes that "spongers" will pay for the services that are currently being subsidized by the state in full.

It turns out that now visits to a hospital for "spongers" can cost a bundle, and in the cold season the unemployed will receive "modified rent bills".

The representative of the Belarusian National Congress in Slonim, individual entrepreneur Viktar Marchyk commented Charter97.org on the new draft decree:

- I can't completely get these "innovations". As well as any other normal human being. We have free medicine in our country, there is no compulsory insurance. Does it mean that if a person feels sick on the street, he willnot be allowed to a hospital? Will they first check pockets and then provide with treatment?

Let's take a look at the situation in the country, there is a great number of unemployed registered at the labor exchange. What are they offered? It's an "unskilled labor" with miserable salary. Belarusians would put hands to a task, if there way a decent payment. But it is enough now only to pay taxes and duties. Naturally, people do not want to do it, they are looking for some other source of income, they leave abroad. But still not everyone can leave. Instead of assistance from the state, whose direct duty is to help its citizens, people find themselves on the list of "spongers".

Some people survive with subsistence production. When a person loses a job, his garden supports him. How can he pay for medical services? They have no money.

"Spongers" are not the only ones who found themselves in a difficult situation. Just take a look at the situation with pensioners. They give their money to children to help them pay off loans young families have to get. Ordinary Belarusians can't cope with the "credit burden" and old people have to help them.

- How far can the authorities go with the updated "parasitic" decree?

- The authorities are trying to expose this decree as "the return of social justice", they say, someone in our country is working hard, and some just relax. Justice is nowhere near. Let them first give people an opportunity to earn money. If someone avoids work, then such laws have the right to discussion.

But what "spongers" do they mean, if the country is flooded with debts, when our foreign policy reminds of a beggar? As soon as you give a job and a decent salary, then you can the right to claim.

The authorities appeal to the fact that the USSR had a similar law, but then there was a job. You are hired the next day the day after you go to a plant. And we are trying to be persuaded that Belarusians are lazy. Our people are hard-working and talented. We just do not want to be slaves who work for a bowl of lentil soup.

- It turns out that we have some sort of a caste system in our country ...

- Exactly, we have a caste of "confidants" who are in power and suck blood of people. There is another caste, it's "spongers". These people are tried to be deprived of the last penny.

Of course, when you want to live a gilded life, eat croissants with French cheese, go to the Canaries, then you need to look for someone to wheedle money out of. Once the IMF generously gave these funds, Russia threw billions of dollars in this "bottomless well". And instead of being used for the revival of our economy, they were frittered away and plundered.

- Not everyone is ready to put up with the situation. Kashtan employees revolt in Homel, Polatsk Steklovolokno announced the strike.

- Belarus has a real serfdom, it's a contract system. This is a noose around a worker's neck, people do not know how to deal with it. But there is a way out!

If something happens at the enterprise, everyone should make a stand. We stop production and we go out to protest, everyone goes on a strike. It is necessary to push claims. And the adoption of an ongoing strike must be one of claims if any of employees is dismissed. And anyone will never be laid a finger on, because no enterprise can operate without such a number of people. Workers must make them respect their rights, only then we can wake up in a free country.