E.Europe: Social Recession/ICFTU 1998 report Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit ............................................................... source - Antti Rautiainen ________________________________________________ A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E http://www.ainfos.ca/ ________________________________________________ INTERNATIONAL CONFEDERATION OF FREE TRADE UNIONS (ICFTU) ICFTU OnLine... 113/990608/LD Eastern Europe: social recession By Natacha David Brussels, June 10 1999 (ICFTU OnLine): Against a background of frantic economic liberalisation, Central and Eastern Europe is sinking deeper into social recession. Widespread privatisation, more precarious forms of employment, less collective bargaining, ever longer delays in the payment of wages, new anti-union legislation and an increase in repressive practices by the employers and the authorities... the global economic situation has only served to aggravate the problems encountered by the workers of the region over the year under review. As a result of this precarious economic situation, says the ICFTU's annual survey, the non-payment of wages remained the dominant social and trade union issue in this region in 1998. In Ukraine, miners and teachers suffered the most from this problem. In Croatia, some 30,000 workers were not paid for up to 40 months at a time. In Serbia, the public sector was the hardest hit, which led to a general strike. In Kazakhstan, miners and workers at a fertiliser factory who had not been paid for two years were driven to the extreme of going on hunger strike. Another 200 workers in the same country found themselves behind bars for protesting at wage arrears of between six months and two years. But it was in Russia that the wage crisis was the most severe, affecting no less than 20 million workers in the public and private sector and leading to mass strikes in April and October, as well as numerous demonstrations and hunger strikes throughout the country. In addition to the problem of unpaid wages, working conditions in general have been steadily deteriorating in the blinkered pursuit of liberalisation and profits. Bulgarian workers at a textile factory in the Sandanski region were forced to work without an employment contract for 12 to 14 hours a day, sometimes on Saturdays and even Sundays. The ICFTU survey also cites the cases of enterprises in the region which forced employees to work 30 hours at a stretch with only two short breaks. The ICFTU is extremely concerned about the fate of the Albanian workers in Kosovo, victims of ethnic cleansing for several years now, recalls the survey. Deploring the mass dismissals of Albanians in the public services purely on ethnic grounds, the ICFTU also expresses its fears for the many trade unionists among the Kosovars displaced, arrested, wounded, tortured, 'disappeared' or killed by the Serb forces. The ICFTU survey equally denounces the discrimination against the independent trade unions of Serbia, and the blatantly favourable treatment of the republic's official trade union, a situation repeated in Belarus. Beyond the borders of Central and Eastern Europe, the ICFTU draws attention to the unenviable fate of the many Romanian seafarers stranded in ports around the world, forced to survive in deplorable conditions aboard ships abandoned by bankrupt owners. In this increasingly difficult social and economic situation, any attempt at fighting for greater justice for workers and the respect of their legitimate rights is a highly risky venture. Intimidation, dismissal and other forms of repression are on the increase, even the lives of trade unionists are at risk, deplores the ICFTU. Beyond the difficulties caused by the economic situation, the region's trade unions were also faced with the decision by the governments of several countries, such as Russia, Belarus and Estonia, to impose new, more restrictive, labour codes. In Bulgaria, 19 workers in a shoe factory in the Plovdid region were dismissed simply for daring to claim their rights. In Lithuania, Rosita Kazakieve was also dismissed from her job in the Siauliai region, simply for joining the LWU trade union. In Croatia, at the beginning of 1998, several peaceful workers' demonstrations were brutally repressed by the police in the capital, Zagreb. Violence against trade unionists is regrettably emerging as a clear trend in the country, as shown by the example of Marijan Marsic, a shop steward in the textile industry who was dismissed and physically assaulted, or Boloca Jurec, another Croatian trade union delegate, imprisoned for one month on the pretext that his criticism of his manager amounted to slander. Risking their lives... In an increasingly tense social climate, trade union repression does not stop at violence, which has sometimes cost the lives of the trade unionists trying to get the workers' voice heard. In Albania, on October 26, Astrit Balluku, president of the teachers' federation and a member of the executive board of the national trade union centre the BSPSH, was shot dead as he arrived at the union's headquarters. In Russia, on 1 January 1999, Gennady Borisov, a trade union leader at the Vnukovo airline, was also assassinated while involved in a campaign to protest at unpaid wages, and after publicly denouncing the company's fraudulent practices. A dangerous venture, given that another trade unionist had been killed in similar circumstances before him. All these dramatic incidents go to show that some of the region's new entrepreneurial class will stop at nothing to rid themselves of anyone getting in their way, particularly those protesting at the ever greater social injustice emerging in this new economic jungle. Contact: ICFTU-Press at: ++32-2 224.02.12 (Brussels). 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