‘Wrong’ Salaries: Why Is Authorities’ Reaction Surprising?

The officials called the problem of state employees “a fake disseminated by the media.”

The subject of salaries of the state employees, accrued under the new salary scheme, has reached a new level. On February 25, the State Control Committee will conduct a direct telephone line on the topic dedicated to this problem.

“Residents of all regions of the country and Minsk can inform specialists of the control department about the facts of a decrease in wages for January of this year compared with that received in previous months,” the State Control Committee’s statement said.

The fact that Leanid Anfimau’s office will study the problem after the Ministry of Labor, albeit through a three-hour hotline, confirms its seriousness once again. Although more recently, the authorities pretended that we are talking about individual cases and shortcomings in the field.

Solidarity offers to recall how events developed, and how the authorities reacted to them.

The new salary calculation scheme for state employees was introduced on January 1, 2020. One of the main changes: the base rate has replaced the tariff rate of the first category.

The authorities assured that the innovations would not lead to a reduction in payments. Lukashenka reinforced these assurances with the promise to “sort things out with everyone” who made proposals to change the scheme for paying public sector wages if someone gets “a ruble less”, given the same load as now.

The first alarm calls from Homel

On February 11, press releases from Homel appeared in the press. According to tut.by, a letter was sent to the Lukashenka Administration from one of the Homel children's sports schools. It reported that school employees were paid according to the new rules, but it turned out to be less than the previous wages.

Soon, school workers informed the portal that they were asked to sign the protocol of the meeting. However, at the same time, the document turned out to be not at all the text that they expected to see. Those who did not agree to sign the protocol were allegedly threatened with problems.

Problem recognized, but with reservations

On February 14, the Ministry of Labor admitted the existence of the problem, stressing that “most of the facts of a decrease in wages for January have not been confirmed during verification.”

At the same time, the officet organized a hotline for the employees of budgetary organizations, promising not to disregard every case.

Lukashenka: “The mass media write different things”

On February 17, Lukashenka asked Finance Minister Maksim Yermalovich:

- What about the salaries of state employees, are we fulfilling these obligations, especially regarding the wage reform we spoke about? The media write different things, but I would like to know how things are going.

“There are cases of fake information”

On February 19, Volha Chuprys, Deputy Head of the Lukashenka Administration, visited the Hrodna region. By that time, reports of fallen salaries of state employees began to come from here.

The official made several statements about the issue of charges.

- This question is under constant control. There are cases of fake information that wages in education, sports schools, and the cultural sphere have decreased. The monitoring showed that the salary fund for January did not decrease,” she assured the staff of the Vaukavysk College of the Yanka Kupala State University.

Chuprys later admitted the fact of incorrectly accrued salaries:

- It turned out that the distortions in payroll were due to the fact that it was simply incorrectly calculated most often. Accordingly, they came to the conclusion that if such changes are taking place in the calculation of wages, then it is necessary to practically manually recalculate wages in order to prevent such distortions.