Two new employees at Minsk plant "Termoplast" were fired on the first day for refusing to join a pro-government trade union organization, part of the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus, reports "Nasha Niva".
At first, the deputy director for ideology suggested that they join the union voluntarily. When she heard their arguments that they were already members of the independent REP trade union, whose leaders were behind bars, she said that it was impossible to work with such a position at the enterprise, even though the plant was short of specialist adjusters.
In a private conversation, the ideologist explained to employees that the trade union was not her whim, but an order for all state-owned enterprises.
The Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus (FPB), although formally considered to be a trade union, in fact is not. Like the unions of women, youth and veterans, this is a state-controlled structure that serves the ruling regime. Among other things, she nominates her candidates for election commissions in pseudo-elections, in which an honest vote count is not conducted. The head of the FPB is Mikhail Orda, a confidant of Aliaksandr Lukashenka, who previously headed the Belarusian Republican Youth Union (BRSM).