How Lukashenko Deceived Workers From Uzbekistan

Belarus has nothing to offer migrant workers.

Alexander Lukashenko’s talks with the president of Uzbekistan last week were not in vain. On July 13, 255 Uzbek citizens arrived in Belarus on a special charter flight to work in agriculture in the Vitebsk region. They were greeted with a festive welcome. With bread, salt, songs, and young women in traditional costumes. But then the celebration ended, and the harsh reality of work began.

Find out how Uzbek workers were deceived in Belarus, and why Belarusians once again could not be replaced by migrants—in the new episode of the “Optimum” program on the YouTube channel “Belarusians and the Market”.

Come, dear guests

On Monday, during a visit to the Shklov District, Alexander Lukashenko boasted that the country’s labor shortage would be resolved very soon, because thousands of hardworking migrants from Uzbekistan would be arriving in Belarus.

“For now, it’s for the Vitebsk Region. Because there are very few people there at all. We need to look at the southeastern part of the Mogilev Region: how many people are needed, and what kind,” said Lukashenko.

However, as early as Wednesday—that is, two days after their arrival—the workers from Uzbekistan, who had been welcomed with such fanfare, began asking to go back. It turned out that the workers from Uzbekistan weren’t willing to work for 500 Belarusian rubles.

“If we’re going to work for $500, and $200 of that goes toward food and another hundred or so for other needs, then there’s no point in working here, wasting our time, and suffering. In that case, you’d better send us back to Uzbekistan,” said one of these workers in a video they posted on social media.

First of all, it turned out to be very embarrassing, of course. I mean, after Lukashenko promised the president of Uzbekistan mountains of gold here for his workers, people were essentially just ripped off at the government level. And second, it was humiliating. Because, on the one hand, they made fools of themselves, and on the other hand, they ultimately failed to take advantage of them after all. It turned out that, unlike the Belarusians, the Uzbeks have someone to stand up for them. On the same day, Uzbekistan’s Agency for External Migration stated that the employment contracts had promised a minimum wage of $900–1,000 and pledged to transfer the workers to another employer.

There’s no such problem

And everything was magically resolved. By the end of the day, one of the Uzbek workers recorded another video. He said that everything was fine, there was no need to worry, and that they had been promised free meals and a salary of $700, not $500.

Belarusian state media gleefully reported that the problem had been promptly resolved.

Although in reality, nothing of the sort. Solving the problems of a single group of migrant workers does nothing to address the issue of attracting migrant workers on a national scale. No one doubts that the Belarusian authorities can organize exemplary working conditions for a couple hundred people—especially if resources are mobilized at the highest levels of government.

But these 250 workers were supposed to be just the first of many. As Lukashenko himself said, he reached an agreement with the president of Uzbekistan for 5,000 people from that country to come to Belarus to work.

But exemplary working conditions won’t be enough for five thousand people. Especially since five thousand people won’t fill the gap that formed in the Belarusian labor market after the departure of hundreds of thousands of Belarusians. Of course, 5,000 real Uzbeks is more than 150,000 imaginary Pakistanis, but tens of thousands of migrant workers are needed to replace the Belarusians.

Not to mention that Lukashenko is persistently urging these migrants to come to Belarus with their families.

“Preferably with their families—when a family man comes here, that’s good for us; we’re short on people, and don’t go thinking that Ilona is going to give birth to five kids tomorrow. That’s not going to happen. Europe has already gone mad, and this is a general European trend here. We’re going to need people,” he said.

And what a plan that was!

In other words, this isn’t just about organizing labor migration. Lukashenko came up with what you might call a long-term project to improve the country’s demographic situation. To replace Belarusians—who don’t want to have children, don’t want to work, and are always looking for something strange—with Uzbeks, who won’t want anything strange but will work wherever they’re told.

Because, in the view of the Belarusian authorities, labor migrants from Uzbekistan are such unpretentious people that they can be housed in a shed and will be happy to work for a pittance. As Belarusian propagandist Grigory Azarenok explained:

“Upon arrival, these people don’t form any communities or clans. They sign a contract with the company and then live with their families in a dormitory, where everyone is in plain sight. And they are regularly visited by the local police officer to ensure there’s not even a thought of disrupting the order familiar to Belarusians. Let me remind you, in case anyone has forgotten: we live under a “dictatorship.”

But it turns out that real Uzbeks don’t want to live in a shed and work for a pittance. And Belarus has nothing else to offer migrant workers. Because Belarus’s “record-high” wages aren’t competitive on the global labor market. So it looks like the same thing will happen to the 5,000 Uzbeks that happened to the 150,000 Pakistanis.

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