[Marxism] RESOLUTION of the Roundtable of trade union and left-wing activists in Odesa (Ukraine)

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https://zahist.wordpress.com/2016/09/18/resolution_odesa_eng/ 
RESOLUTION of the Roundtable of trade union and left - wing activists in Odesa, 
10 September 2016     5 November 2015 the Parliament of Ukraine has adopted in 
the first reading the draft of new Labour Code . As it became clear later , 
parliament speaker of that time Mr . Volodymyr Groisman has fooled MPs 
insisting that adoption of the Labour Code is EU demand for visa - free regime 
for the citizens of Ukraine .   Ukrainian trade union and left-wing activists 
immediately correctly declared this draft of new Labour Code as predator and 
anti-worker one. Also we adopted the decision that independent trade unions 
should immediately take part in the work of the Working group of Parliament 
committee on the issues of social policy employment and pension provision for 
making impossible sharp worsening of the freedoms and rights of workers and 
trade unions via adoption of this draft of new Labour Code.   Unfortunately, 
real picture was completely different and very unpleasant. The job of the 
Working group was absolutely hidden and opaque for Ukrainian society and 
independent trade unions, where the representatives of employers and 
sub-controlled to oligarchic influences “official” Federation of Trade Unions 
of Ukraine (FTUU) in fact, betrayed the interests of wide layers of Ukrainian 
workers.     Because of extreme cloudiness of the Labour Code preparation for 
the second reading Ukrainian society still doesn’t know, which propositions 
from the trade unions were taken into account by the profile committee headed 
by Mrs. Liudmyla Denysova. At the present time we have the information that the 
most blatant and shameful norms of the Labour Code weren’t change and are being 
prepared for the voting in the second reading. Even its brief list is very 
impressive:   Article 86 of the draft allows the possibility of outrageous mass 
firing of the employees under the employer’s wish without any possibilities of 
their defense свавільних масових скорочень працівників по волі роботодавця без 
жодних варіантів їх захисту. Article 92 of the draft lets employers to fire 
workers, which serve financial and material values “because of losing the 
confidence”, even if it’s not connected with the job.     Article 92 of the 
draft lets employers to fire the worker, employed in the educational area for 
making “immoral deed”, even if this deed took place not at the work. It’s clear 
that “morality” and “immorality” will be decided exclusively by employer.   
Article 158 of the draft allows attraction of some categories of the workers to 
the job in holiday and festive days without their agreement.    The same 
Article 158 of the draft deprives the employees of the double-paying for job on 
holidays.   Article 65 of the draft lets the employers to move the workers to 
other workplace (even to other city) without their agreement. Article 30 of the 
draft lets the employers to conduct the video and audio surveillance over the 
workers during the whole working day, roughly ignoring the basic human right 
for private life.    Article 108 of the draft deprives single mothers of 
presently existing defense and lets the employers to roughly fire them because 
of any reason.   Article 291 of the draft lets attract women with children to 
night works, the works on holiday and festive days and attract them to overtime 
works, depriving   women with children from the guarantees of defense acting at 
the present time.   Article 58 of the draft sets the fact that labour contract 
is provided to the employee during 7 days since beginning of the work, i.e. it 
provokes the employers to using “fraud” schemes, where the employees will work 
6 days for free and then will not be adopted for the work because “they’re not 
good enough for this job”.      One of the most blatant points is the norm of 
Article 12 of the draft, where all legislation volume of labour regulation, 
which falls outside the limits of the Labour Code, is transferred to so-called 
“employer normative acts”, which are adopted exclusively by the employer and 
should not be coordinated with trade unions.   Generally trade unions rights 
are considerably limited in this draft; and it could lead to immediate 
destruction of whole trade union movement in Ukraine because of impossibility 
of court and trade union defense from illegal firing. In particular, it’ll be 
possible to fire the employee without preliminary agreement of trade union 
committee.   As many as 52 article of the Labour Code draft determine the 
coordination of particular employer’s action with “trade union committee”, in 

Re: [Marxism] Soviet literature

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http://royallib.com/book/sobolev_leonid/zeleniy_luch.html  
DOWNLOAD by Russian 

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От кого: "Ken Hiebert via Marxism"  
Дата: 7 октября 2016, 19:24:04 

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I have acquired a copy of The Green Light by L. Sobolev.  It seems to be widely 
available on line, but I could pass it along to Soviet Studies somewhere.
ken h
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[Marxism] Left and Trade Union Conference in Kyiv (Ukraine)

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https://zahist.wordpress.com/2016/12/16/trade-union-conference-in-kyiv-modernization-of-ukrainian-labour-legislation-view-of-trade-union-and-labour-law-specialists/
 
Trade Union Conference in Kyiv: “Modernization of Ukrainian labour legislation: 
view of trade union and labour law specialists” 

3 December 2016  All-Ukrainian  trade union “Zakhyst Pratsi” (“Defense of 
Labour”)  conducted its conference in in Kyiv “ Modernization of Ukrainian 
labour legislation: view of trade union and labour law specialists ”. The 
activists of following Ukrainian trade unions, civil unions and left-wing 
parties, participated in the conference work: AUITU “Zakhyst Pratsi” (trade 
union branches at PJSC “Ukrsybbank”(BNP Paribas) (Kyiv), Living-Exploitation 
Company # 109 (Kyiv), “Metro   Cash and   Carry   “(Kyiv), “Pivdenmash (Dnipro) 
ATU “People Solidarity” (trade union branch of converter shop of PJSC 
“Metallurgic Company “Azovstal” (Mariupol). Independent trade union at PJSC 
“Mondelis Ukraine” (Trostianets, Сумська область) Independent miners trade 
union (city organization, Kryvyi Rig) All-Ukrainian Trade Union Confederation 
(Kyiv) Trade union of Ukrainian land relations industry (Kyiv) National Trade 
Union Confederation of Ukraine (Dnipro, Kyiv) All-Ukrainian trade union of 
attested police workers (regional organization, Mykolaiv) Trade union of 
aircraft builders of Ukraine (FTUU, Kyiv) Independent trade union “Solidarity” 
of Black Sea ship-building plant (Mykolaiiv) Independent trade union of 
Mariupol sea port (Mariupol) Independent trade union Mykolaiiv sea port 
(Mykolaiiv) Strike committee of “Khersonelektrotrans” plant (Kherson) Civil 
council of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine Workers Party (Kyiv, 
Mykolaiiv, Dnipro) Social-Democratic Party (Kyiv) Organizational committee of 
Social Movement party (Kyiv, Kryvyi Rig).   The following persons had spoken at 
the conference: Dmytro Filipchuk – the Chairman of Trade union of Ukrainian 
land relations industry Petro Petrychenko – the Chairman of National Trade 
Union Confederation of Ukraine and Grygorii Kabanchenko – the Chairman of Civil 
council of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine. We’d received comradely 
greetings from following fraternal organizations:  independent workers trade 
union of Kazakhstan “Zhanartu” (Mukhtar Umbetov and Ainur Kurmanov) general 
national French trade union l’Union syndicale Solidaires (from the name of 
trade union its Chairman Verveine Angeli) left-wing parliament party Red Green 
Alliance, Denmark (from the name of party’s international secretariat – Mikael 
Hertoft) The Ukraine Solidarity Campaign (Great Britain) (from the name of 
organization its founder Marco Bojcun).   Main reports at the conference was 
done by the researchers:  Natalia Agnyshchenko – the Chairman of Women Bureau 
of AUITU “Zakhyst Pratsi”  (“Gender aspect in new Labour Code draft: remarks 
and propositions of social active and trade union activists ” and Vitalii Dudin 
– the lawyer of the Center of social and labour researches  (“Selective 
adoption of European experience as the way of labour rights shortening” ).  
Third report was done by  the Chairman of the Central Coordination Committee of 
all-Ukrainian trade union “People Solidarity” Oleksii Kliashtornyi  
(“Persoectives and dangers of new Labour Code”) . The panel discussion  on the 
topic  “Modern problems of Ukrainian labour legislation reforming: general 
Ukrainian and regional aspects”  with attraction with regional conference 
participants was made under the moderation of  lawyer – human rights defender 
Oleksandr Palii . Undoubtedly, the conference has shown high ability of the 
activists of Ukrainian independent trade unions in the direction of further 
struggle against anti-worker and anti-union new Labour Code draft. The 
connections between activists of different Ukrainian trade unions considerable 
improved during 2016. The problems of analysis of new Labour Code draft indeed 
was very important and actual for integration of the activists of Ukrainian 
independent trade unions on all-Ukrainian level. Both newly established and 
quite experienced trade unions form different regions of Ukraine at the first 
time received real possibility to coordinate its efforts for widening among 
working class masses real and true information regarding this predator and 
anti-worker new Labour Code draft. Independent Ukrainian trade unions, 
left-wing activists as well as professional and honest scientists – law 
researchers succeed during very short period of time to create the coalition of 
trade union organizations, civil unions and even political forces, 

[Marxism] “Labour defense” (Ukraine) at the Assembly of Resistance in Budapest

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https://zahist.wordpress.com/2018/03/11/zahist-pratzi-labour-defense-at-the-assembly-of-resistance-in-budapest/


A regional European Assembly of Resistance (AoR) was held in Budapest (Hungary) 
on March 2-4, 2018, a delegation of the All-Ukrainian Independent Trade Union 
“Zahist pratzi” (“Labourdefense”) consisting of the coordinator of the 
all-Ukrainian independent trade union “Zahist pratzi” Andrii Ishchenko and a 
member of the feminine department of the all-Ukrainian independent trade union 
“Zahist pratzi” Inna Valeshkovskaya took part in its work from Ukraine. Among 
the participants there were representatives of the left and social 
organizations of Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Spain, Czech Republic, Germany, 
Russia, Croatia, Serbia, France, Sweden.



As it was expected, the most heated discussion was on the “Ukrainian issue”. 
The representative of the pro-Russian party “The Union of Left Forces” (Sergei 
Markin), living outside Ukraine and claiming that the fascist regime is already 
established in Ukraine and their party is being persecuted and works 
underground, tried to add to the text of the final resolution paragraphs which 
would shift the emphases of the final resolutions from social-class priorities 
to civilizational ones. On the contrary, the representative of the 
All-Ukrainian Independent Trade Union “Zahist pratzi” (Andrii Ishchenko), who 
came to Budapest from Ukraine, focused on the fact that the right regime in 
Ukraine, although slipping increasingly into authoritarianism and carrying out 
ultra-capitalist reforms, tries to preserve democratic decorations and at this 
time isn’t distinguished by its nature from right-wing authoritarian regimes in 
the surrounding Ukraine Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and there are no sufficient 
grounds to believe that the regime in Ukraine has already turned into the 
regime of an open terrorist dictatorship since left and trade union activists 
operate in Ukraine by legal methods of work; they consider suicidal to drive 
themselves into the underground and will make maximum use of the remaining 
opportunities for legal struggle for the rights of Ukrainian workers in spite 
of the growing pressure of an authoritarian anti-democratic regime and 
persecution of trade union activists in different parts of Ukraine. As a result 
of an acute open controversy and a lengthy discussion of practically all 
participants of the meeting the final text of the General Resolution of the 
Assembly of Resistance retained its class-social orientations and accents of 
genuine proletarian internationalism and was not led into seeking of 
“progressive” imperialism and the struggle of civilizations.



Based on the results of the three-days work, the text of the Final Declaration 
of the General Meeting of the Assembly of Resistance was adopted, in which the 
participants stated the crisis of the political and parliamentary left wing 
practically in all countries of the world, the ubiquitous reduction of the 
social state (even in Sweden) and the need for joint international actions in 
which the “overthrow” of authoritarian systems can begin socially only with a 
broad, mass movement of public self-defense.



Participants in a representative regional international meeting in Budapest 
adopted four main directions of joint actions:



1) In the economy – the fight against the oligarchic economy and its 
replacement by a mixed multi-sector economy, creating of a pluralistic 
ownership structure for broader groups of society, in other words the necessity 
of freedom in organizing cooperatives in all spheres of economy;



2) In social policy – the struggle to improve the living conditions of the 
social groups which are below. Instead of various forms of bourgeois 
nationalism, racism, ethnic folly, the persecution of Roma and migrants, the 
most important public task of the left wing – regardless of politics – is to 
ensure the cultural growth of the population, the establishment of civilian 
“people’s” educational structures and self-education groups;



3) In the political field – the concept of political democracy needs to be 
supplemented with concepts of economic and cultural democracy, so that everyone 
could be involved in “democracy”, and not just “elected” ones. Authoritarian 
regimes and their excluding constitutions must be rejected. Social rights 
should be fixed in the constitutions and they must be implemented;





4) In the field of social base – the main reliance of the anticapitalist left 
wing are trade unions and public organizations. If the left forces do not act 
as a spokesman of the interests of people living on wages or labor 

[Marxism] Ukraine: «Zakhyst Pratsy» («Labor defence») indicates multiple violations of labor rights of workers!

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On February 20, 2019 Oleg Vernyk, Chairman of the All-Ukrainian Independent 
Trade Union «Zakhyst Pratsy» («Labor defence»), took part in a meeting of the 
Working Group-4 of the Ukrainian side of the Ukraine-EU Civil Society Platform, 
where a discussion of the Report on the violation of trade union and labor 
rights in Ukraine was held.

During the stormy discussion and discussion of the proposals of its 
participants, the representative of «Zakhyst Pratsy» was able to update the 
following problems of the modern trade union movement to include them in the 
latest version. Reports:

  

Violation of the rights of newly created trade unions to join existing 
collective agreements in enterprises and to participate in the process of 
adopting new collective agreements.The impossibility of the legal organizing of 
the strikes in Ukraine through the existing legislative regulation, which 
actually makes it impossible to conduct them.Strengthening the rough practice 
of employer’s civil lawsuits against trade unions in order to prohibit trade 
unions from using in their names the name of the enterprise where they are 
created.Strengthening by the judiciary the practice of gross disregard for the 
current labor legislation of Ukraine in the field of guarantees to members of 
elected trade union bodies from dismissal and the imposition by employers of 
other disciplinary penalties.We inform that the work of WG-4 on the final 
version of the document should end within a few days.

Press service All-Ukrainian Independent Trade Union «Zakhyst Pratsi»  

https://zahist.wordpress.com/2019/02/24/ukraine-zakhyst-pratsy-labor-defence-indicates-multiple-violations-of-labor-rights-of-workers/

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[Marxism] Oleh Vernik about Ukrainian elections (spanish)

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http://anticapitalistasenred.org/2019/04/26/ucrania-zelenski-es-una-condena-a-poroshenko-y-a-su-sistema-de-un-corrupto-capitalismo-oligarquico/?fbclid=IwAR2wU3vkE2buPlFvF1IROTE1MA6jcTZAFT-Dydfucv89mueUddrxQ3FVy_k

Ucrania: Zelenski es una condena a Poroshenko y a su sistema de un corrupto 
capitalismo oligárquico

El pasado 21 de abril de 2019, en la segunda ronda de las elecciones 
presidenciales en Ucrania, el comediante Volodimir Zelenski, conocido muy lejos 
de Ucrania, obtuvo una victoria aplastante. Sacó un 75% de los votos y dejó muy 
atrás al actual presidente de Ucrania, Petro Poroshenko (con un 25%).

Sin embargo, esta victoria sensacional no ha sido inesperada para los 
ciudadanos de Ucrania. Cinco años de gobernación de Petro Poroshenko, con sus 
reformas neoliberales absolutamente fallidas que pusieron a los ciudadanos de 
Ucrania y, sobre todo, a su clase trabajadora al borde de la miseria, 
lógicamente llevaron a las autoridades actuales al fracaso en las elecciones 
presidenciales. En los debates públicos de Zelenski y Poroshenko, que por 
primera vez en la historia de Ucrania se llevaron a cabo en el estadio 
¨Olimpiyski¨, que es el mayor del país, Volodimir Zelenski afirmó acertadamente 
que no era oponente a Poroshenko, sino una sentencia a Poroshenko y a su 
sistema.

Por supuesto, el nuevo presidente de Ucrania, Volodimir Zelenski, no fue 
promovido por los trabajadores o militantes sociales. Es un exitoso hombre de 
negocios en el campo de televisión y cinematografía, y el componente social de 
su programa electoral fue extremadamente inexpresivo y mal distinguido. Sin 
embargo, el ardor crítico de Zelenski contra el actual gobierno burgués que es 
extremadamente corrupto fue activamente respaldado por las masas de los 
trabajadores ucranianos.

El proyecto satírico Kvartal-95, que sale en la tele y es dirigido desde hace 
muchos años por Volodimir Zelenski, ha estado a la vanguardia de la crítica de 
las autoridades actuales y es el programa de televisión favorito para millones 
de ucranianos. Y la tercera temporada de la telenovela Servidor del Pueblo, que 
apareció en vísperas de las elecciones, donde Zelenski desempeñó el papel de 
Vasily Goloborodko, un modesto maestro que por casualidad se hizo Presidente de 
Ucrania y logró un éxito significativo, produjo un efecto desbordante sobre los 
votantes.

Además, cabe señalar que en estas elecciones Zelenski recibió un serio apoyo 
mediático del canal de televisión más popular de Ucrania, «1+1» que pertenece a 
Ihor Kolomoiski, oligarca de oposición que ahora reside en Israel. Esto les dio 
a los críticos de Zelenski la razón para afirmar que no era un candidato 
independiente, sino que en estas elecciones era nada más que una criatura de 
uno de los grupos oligárquicos competidores. Sin embargo, esta tesis no supo 
dominar la conciencia de las masas de los votantes ucranianos, ya que el 
presidente actual Poroshenko es públicamente conocido como un oligarca y una de 
las personas más ricas de Ucrania, quien, mientras estaba en su cargo, ha 
aumentado muchísimo sus activos y sus beneficios.

El golpe decisivo a las posiciones electorales del presidente Poroshenko lo 
dieron las audaces investigaciones periodísticas sobre la corrupción dentro de 
la corporación pública Ukroboronprom que involucró a los amigos más íntimos y 
socios comerciales de Poroshenko. En el contexto de un conflicto real con 
Rusia, estos comerciantes se amañaban para comprar para el ejército ucraniano 
las piezas de repuesto defectuosas y usadas para varias armas en la propia 
Rusia y las revendían a un precio exorbitante usando el dinero del presupuesto.

El presidente de Ucrania, Petro Poroshenko, no sólo es un magnate del sector de 
confitería y transporte, sino, además, el mayor propietario mediático. De 
hecho, le pertenecen dos canales de televisión influyentes en Ucrania: el «5 
Kanal» y el «Pryamiy Kanal». Durante la campaña electoral Poroshenko mantuvo 
activos varios miles de «bots» en la red social Facebook que fueron concordados 
con las órdenes informativas del presidente actual y por su actividad se creaba 
una ilusión de un apoyo masivo del presidente actual. Sin embargo, este engaño 
terminó sin gloria y la cifra de un 25% del apoyo de los votantes sepultó final 
e irrevocablemente a Poroshenko como presidente de Ucrania.

Al igual que en el caso de Zelenski, el programa electoral de Poroshenko 
prácticamente no contenía pautas sociales. La demagogia sobre su guerra exitosa 
contra Putin y sobre la obtención de autocefalia para una de las muchas 
iglesias ortodoxas de Ucrania (Iglesia Ortodoxa Ucraniana – Patriarcado de 
Kiev) no 

Re: [Marxism] Russia: the nature of the Putin regime

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Russia - this is not a deformed workers' state now?

--- Исходное сообщение ---
От кого: "Richard Modiano via Marxism" 
Дата: 16 января 2020, 23:22:53

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What Putin sees today as a tool to suppress a potential movement of the
working class is not the [far right] National Liberation Movement (NLM),
but the National Guard (Rosguard) [an internal military force that reports
directly to the President due to his powers as Supreme Commander-in-Chief
of the Security Council]. His regime is more similar to that of von
Schleicher than a fascist one. The mass movement of the working class has
not yet raised the issue of power, and Putin can still fully rely on the
machinery of the bourgeois state.
https://www.marxist.com/russia-the-nature-of-the-putin-regime.htm
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[Marxism] Ukraine: Forest Fires Near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant - a verdict on Ukrainian capitalism

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https://zahist.wordpress.com/2020/04/21/ukraine-forest-fires-near-the-chernobyl-nuclear-power-plant/
By Oleg Vernik, President of the Independent Union of Ukraine “Zahist Pracі” 
(“Labor Protection”)

For two weeks, a true ecological tragedy unfolded in Ukraine with massive 
forest fires in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. The fires swept huge wooded areas 
and closely surrounded the nuclear power plant that was destroyed in 1986. The 
riskiest thing now is a large deposit of radioactive waste, which will 
represent a danger not only for our country, but also for the whole of Europe, 
if the fires reach it .

For two weeks, nationally mobilized fire brigades fought the fire desperately, 
but only the rain and snow that fell on April 14 were able to stop it. On that 
same date, in the evening, President Volodímir Zelensky spoke on television, 
reported on the end of the incident and thanked the weather for the great help 
in extinguishing the fire. But on April 15, the fire resumed and more than 500 
firefighters are still fighting it heroically.

The Chernobyl fire revealed all the direct failures and crimes of Ukraine’s 
capitalist authorities. First, it must be taken into account that the real 
causes of these fires are associated with illegal deforestation in the 
exclusion zone: forests are radioactive and their use is strictly prohibited. 
However, several Ukrainian companies involved in the timber trade have 
indiscriminately cut down the trees and used them in construction, including 
using false documents to export radioactive wood to countries of the European 
Union as firewood or building material. In order to avoid getting caught for 
deforesting illegally, these “businessmen” cover up their crimes year after 
year with large fires that hide their extreme action under water.

Of course, there is a strong corruption actively involved here that has been 
neutralizing the oversight of police and prosecutors for many years. This 
winter there was practically no snow, the dryness in the forests became very 
dangerous and facilitated the spread of fires, but this did not stop the 
Ukrainian bourgeoisie of the forest industry. The arson caused a terrible 
ecological disaster, and to think about what might happen in the near future is 
terrifying.

Second, firefighters do not have adequate technical equipment to deal with the 
fire. Ukraine lacks extinction helicopters. The entrances to the affected areas 
do not even have roads, so water pumping vehicles often cannot enter. The 
fireproof clothing is very old, it does not resist high temperatures. Fire 
trucks are very old, some no longer have job utility and should have been 
scrapped long ago. Even so, they continue in activity, since there is no budget 
in the most corrupt and poorest country in Europe to buy new, more modern 
units. But the authorities always have money to raise the salaries of high 
officials and buy expensive foreign cars.

The fire in the vicinity of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the evident 
inability of the Ukrainian bourgeois government to cope with the Coronavirus 
pandemic, place the task of socialist transformation before the Ukrainian 
people. The peripheral model of Ukrainian capitalism leads to a further 
aggravation of the situation, to the total impoverishment of the workers and to 
the strengthening of foreign governance. Russia’s military aggression against 
Ukraine was compounded by the financial dictates of the International Monetary 
Fund. A growing number of Ukrainian workers, youth and union activists 
understand the need for a decisive rejection of capitalism. The disaster caused 
by the fires, with the threat over Chernobyl, has strengthened and confirmed 
this understanding, as well as our determination.
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[Marxism] Ukraine: labor struggle against anti-union reform

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http://lis-isl.org/en/2020/06/27/ucrania-detengamos-la-ofensiva-del-gobierno-contra-los-derechos-laborales-de-los-ciudadanos/
Ukraine: We Must Stop the Government´s Offensive Against People´s Labor Rights

By Oleg Vernik, Vitali Dudin. Labor Defense Union

This article is being written while a great scandal has just broken out in 
Ukraine. The chairperson of the Parliamentary Commission for Social Policy, 
Galina Tretyakova, author of the anti-union bill No. 2681, has publicly stated 
that “poor quality” children are born to poor Ukrainian families in need of 
state social assistance. In addition, she has said that she is impressed by 
Singapore’s experience with its forced sterilization of mothers who cannot 
raise their children without state support.

In this context of sad analogies with eugenics, Hitler’s pseudoscience, the 
attack by the presidential party “Servant of the People” against the labor 
rights of Ukrainian citizens seems absolutely expected. Over the past 15 years, 
successive bourgeois authorities in Ukraine have been trying to “modernize” 
Ukraine’s labor legislation and, first of all, decree the invalidity of the 
rules of the Labor Code that has been in force since 1971. Of course, the 1971 
Labor Code has already been updated many times and, step by step, it has been 
losing its functions of protecting workers’ labor rights. However, at this 
time, the Code remains our outpost in the fight against liberalization of 
industrial relations in Ukraine exclusively in favor of employers.

What anti-union innovations does the Servant of the People party offer in its 
draft of Law No. 2681?

1. The powers of union committees (elected union bodies) to require company 
owners to terminate the employment contract with the head of the company if the 
latter violates labor laws are revoked;

2. An absolutely senseless restriction is introduced on the formation of more 
than two unions in one company. Currently, many major Ukrainian companies may 
even have over 10 different union organizations. In other words, the bosses 
will create 2 “yellow” unions, while other militant unions will no longer be 
able to organize in the company;

3. Union committees will lose their right to coordinate the application of 
disciplinary sanctions (reprimands) to members of union committees;

4. The dismissal of the members of the union committees will be carried out 
without the agreement of the superior organism of the union;

5. To create a primary union organization, it will take at least ten members, 
and not three like today. This will result in the impossibility of founding 
unions in small companies and in autonomous subdivisions of companies.

6. Unions will no longer control the activities of canteens, residences, 
kindergartens and other social facilities belonging to the company;

7. Unions will not be allowed to require employers to submit documents on 
workers’ working conditions;

8. Unions will no longer control payroll and state social security accounts;

9. Obligatory deductions of companies to the primary union organizations for 
the organization of cultural, sports and recreational activities will cease;

10. The ban on bosses from firing former union committee members for 1 year 
will be removed.

11. The employer will no longer pay union committee members for 6 days a year 
that are assigned for union training.

Not all the anti-labor innovations in the draft of the criminal law number 2681 
promoted by the parliamentary group of the presidential party are listedhere. 
Today, union rights are under constant attack. Due to irrelevant cases of 
breach of guarantees and even persecution of trade unions, Ukraine, along with 
Belarus, occupy the lowest positions in Europe in the ranking of the Global 
Rights Index of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC Global Rights 
Index – 2019). A wave of neoliberal reforms by the Zelensky government 
suffocates Ukraine. However, every day the resistance to this offensive against 
the popular masses is being strengthened. Both the post-Soviet Ukrainian 
Federation of Trade Unions and the new independent unions have come together to 
counter the government’s plans. The International Trade Union Confederation 
(ITUC) and its leader Sharan Burrow have clearly declared to the whole world: 
“Any successive promotion of the project of Law No. 2681 without a real and 
significant participation of the unions, as well as its inconsistency with 
labor standards and the Constitution of Ukraine, will undermine Ukraine’s 
reputation as a trusted international and trade partner.”

Workers and unions face decisive battles for the preservation of