Government legalizes mass dismissals of workers

The ministry of labor and social welfare is authorized to set criterions of mass release of workers.

On 2 March a decree of the Council of Ministers of Belarus No. 260 On defining criteria 0f workers’ mass release was signed.

Earlier such criteria were defined on the contractual basis by the local authorities on the one part, and trade unions and employers on the second and third parts, Ezhednevnik writes.

For instance, for Minsk region in general, a corresponding agreement has defined that mass release is a release of 1% of workers within a calendar month. It is 1.5% for towns of region subordination, for districts and other towns and settlements it is 2%. Besides, these criteria could be defined by trade unions and employees in concrete collective contracts at enterprises.

And now the situation has changed fundamentally. According to the decree of the government, setting the criterion of mass dismissal is given to the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare instead of being a part of sphere of negotiations with trade unions (no matter how bad they are).

It could be only guesses how these criteria would be changed. However officials of the ministry have an effective tool to demonstrate an optimistic picture of population’s employment, at least on paper.