29 March 2024, Friday, 5:28
Support
the website
Sim Sim,
Charter 97!
Categories

When ‘Parasitic’ Commissions Chicken Out

53
When ‘Parasitic’ Commissions Chicken Out
LEANID SUDALENKA
PHOTO: RADIO LIBERTY

What the situation in the labor market will lead to.

This is not the first time the authorities are trying to show that everything is good in Belarus in the sphere of employment. One of such tools was “job fairs”, designed to show that “there are jobs in the country”. What is the real situation in the labor market? The website Charter97.org addressed to Leanid Sudalenka, a well-known legal labor inspector of the independent trade union of the radio-electronic industry workers (REP) in the Homel region for a comment.

- Lukashenka promised to employ all Belarusians several times. How do you assess the situation in the labor market? Have the authorities performed well?

- If they had completed their mission, there would have been no continuation of the “parasitic decree” that we got last year.

As for the situation in the labor market, today Belarusians are increasingly leaving for work abroad. Interestingly, we are witnessing a new trend: Belarusians are mostly looking for work not in Russia, but in the EU countries. The leaders are Poland, Lithuania, Czech Republic. People choose real wages, not work for food they are offered in our country. Judge for yourself, after the payment of the utility bills, the Belarusian has just enough money so as not to starve to death.

Therefore, these “job fairs”, which officials keep telling us about, remain absolute profanation. This is a dead weight. Sometimes these job offers are answered by people who have nothing left but to work for a bowl of soup. There are very few people willing to work eight hours a day for $ 150 a month. People just can't afford it.

- In the “parasitic” decree, the authorities keep on mentioning that each Belarusian must work. However, does our state have an opportunity to provide jopbs to the 500 K “parasites” they found?

- Of course not. If there were such a number of jobs in our country, then the authorities simply would not have spent money on the creation of “parasitic” commissions. I want to emphasize that this is the constitutional right of every person to work or not. The Constitution guarantees us this and not a single official should interfere in these processes.

On February 12, we filed a lawsuit to the court of the Chyhunachny district of the city of Homel and we will argue that by purchasing goods and services a person automatically becomes engaged in the economy. The “parasitic” decree misplaces concepts. It is clear that they want to force Belarusians work for pennies. But I want to say to the authorities: if you want Belarusians to work, create attractive vacancies, and do not drive everyone to work for a bowl of soup.

Today, our people have to look for work abroad. They abandon families, children grow up without fathers and mothers. A fresh example: a girl from Homel, very young, with a small child, and she is forced to go to Biala Podlaska, work there for 15 days as a seller to feed her family. Half a month in Poland, half a month in Belarus.

Imagine, young girls go to work abroad, let alone our men. For 15 days, she earns 500 euros and lives good on this money here. It is clear that she has to work there for 12 hours. But we have the same situation. People come to my reception office and say that they work overtime, but earn $ 150-200. Imagine, that is the difference between the two countries. It’s time to disperse all these “parasitic” commissions, which parasite on our money.

- What vacancies do these “parasitic commissions” offer?

- They have no vacancies. Under their competence, they can only send a person to a labor and detox center, if they abuse alcohol. As soon as we begin to understand, complain about these commissions - they immediately chicken out and shut up.

So it was in Bragin, when the “parasite” was quickly removed from the list, in the Navabelitski district of Homel, when a seven-year-old child was “unexpectedly” found in the family.

These commissions will not lift a finger to do something useful. How was it possible to declare a person, who has a child under seven years old, a “parasite”? It's easy to check! 19 parasites are sitting in this commission, they declared a person a “parasite” and blackmailed him with an increased utility bill. And the man turned out to have a five year old child.

Therefore, a “parasite” comes to them, they talk to him, put a tick in the report card and that's it. What can they offer us?

I already told a story about how a freelancer came to me at the end of last year. Then he was included in the list of “parasites”. So this commission offered a person earning about $ 3000 to go to work as a janitor in the house management for $ 150. And they said “go grab it, it’s a hot job, it will be taken tomorrow.”

- The authors of the survey Global Economy Watch put Belarus at the 10th place in the list of countries with the quickest outflow of able-bodied population. Is the massive migration a sort of an assessment of the government’s work and the vacancies it offers?

- Of course, it is not the “parasites” who brought the country to such a situation. Who would go to work in Europe or Russia for $ 800, if they received $ 900 in Belarus? The real salary in Belarus is $ 150- $ 200. So it is still considered a good offer. Belarusians, too, are not fools, they all can count. You work at home - you take part in the upbringing of children, you live with your family, and not in some workers' hostels. People leave the country not because they lived well here.

The government is to blame here, and the course it has chosen. We often hear that “Belarus will not be led by the civilized world,” “we do not need reforms,” “we do not need a market economy.” Today we see where our government led the country for 25 years. And nowhere to go. Every day of delay is deathlike.

We need to quickly reform the economy, create new jobs. If not, we will turn into a third world country, a banana republic, although I’ll emphasize that we are geographically located in the very center of Europe. Our country has excellent opportunities to quickly carry out economic reforms, using the example of our western neighbors.

- Which consequences for the economy could the processes we are observing in the labor market lead to?

- The country will be declared bankrupt and that's it. Today we found ourselves in a difficult life situation. It may happen that tomorrow there will be no one behind the lathe. And this is taking into account the fact that in our country the retirement age was raised for women and for men. This already increases the number of workers, but, as we see, this is not enough. The worst thing is that we are losing our young people, they pack their “survival kits” and leave for the West. If this state of affairs continues, Lukashenka will be declared a bankrupt.

It will be recalled that on September 3 editor-in-chief of Charter-97 Natallia Radzina announced the threat to informational resource cause by drastic reduction in financing and called readers for solidarity. Ways to support the website:

DONATION VIA PAYPAL:


MULTI-CURRENCY ACCOUNT FOR ASSISTANCE:

Bank's name: Bank Millennium S.A.

Address: ul. Stanislawa Zaryna, 2A, 02-593, Warszawa

IBAN: PL 97 1160 2202 0000 0002 1671 1123

SWIFT: BIGBPLPW

Name of the account holder: Fundacja “KARTA ‘97”

Purpose/title of payment: Donation for statuary aims


You can contact us by the e-mail charter97@gmail.com

Write your comment 53

Follow Charter97.org social media accounts