“FPB engages in anything at all but doing its direct job”

Pro-Government pseudo unions have now made their involvement in the propaganda campaign on the “festering West” one of their areas of activity.

The idea from the ideological arsenal of the USSR era that the FPB has taken on board is extremely crude: everything they have in the EU is bad and everything we have here is good. Although, sometimes the specially trained people implementing the premise do not even suspect that their propagandistic zeal produces an effect that is quite different from the one they have counted on.

Protests in Portugal // Photo: cgtp.pt

One of these days, the FPB web-site reported that tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Lisbon, protesting against plans to amend the national labour legislation. The proposed amendments, in particular, include a simplified dismissal procedure: the Government intends to make sure that the employers will no longer need to provide a justification for dismissal at the employee’s request. And yes, the massive demonstration has been organized by trade unions who staunchly oppose the reforms.

But, hearing that, virtually any worker in Belarus would exclaim, hey, wait a minute! don’t we have a fixed-term labour contract system in the country that for the last quarter of a century allows to lay people off without any reason once their employment contract is expired? Don’t we depend on prejudiced decisions of the management which are often based on the assessment of workers’ political and personal loyalty rather than their professional skills and qualities?

And many people will have a couple of extra questions coming to mind, like how come the organizers and most active participants of the strike action in Portugal have not been put behind bars, nor branded extremists and terrorists? And the unions who have organized the strike under the slogans “Do not restrict our rights!”, “Hands off the Labour Code!”, “We want decent lives!”, etc. have not been disbanded?

Siarhei Antusevich, Vice-President of the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions, has pointed out in his interview to Salidarnast that the task of trade unions is exactly to protect workers’ rights and improve their working conditions:

“While the FPB would engage in anything at all but doing its direct job.

“In the past 10-15 years, you’ll see no information signaling the Federation’s dissatisfaction with for instance, the wage level in the country or its willingness to try to change somehow the current system of discriminatory fixed-term employment contracts.

“They paint a nice picture of a wonderful system of labour relations built in our country where all issues are resolved at the negotiations table.

“And, naturally, this system has no room for protests and indignation, with all things running smoothly in full compliance with the general policy of superior management. And we do have the most fair and socially oriented State, if I could allow myself a touch of bitter irony.

“While street protests is an indispensible part of collective actions because they provide an opportunity to show how many people are against. For instance, during the protests against the labour law reform in France, over a million people took to the streets, although we know that the union density in the economically active population is at the level of 12-15%. This shows the mobilizing power of the unions and the relevance of the issuers they raise.

“But independent unions who could have become such a force are banned in Belarus, while the FPB is but an obedient and totally controlled structure of the current regime.

P.S. And the FPB web-site also rues the low minimum wage level in Portugal – “a meager EUR 870”. Forgetting to mention that in Belarus the minimum wage today is… BYN 752 (around EUR 190).

Victoria Leonieva

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