Members of Free Trade Union fired from "Shklovalakno" plant
According to the collective agreement, the employer must ask the trade union for permission to fire people. The free trade union does not allow firing their leaders, RFE/RL reports.
On 5 December the enterprise’s administration send an
official letter to the Free trade union regarding the dismissal of
the operator of the workshop No 7 Viktar
Stukau and the master’s
assistant of the same workshop Mikalai
Sharakh. Viktar Stukau
is the head of the Free trade union’s subsidiary at the
"Shklovalakno" ("Glass Fiber") enterprise in
Polatsk, Mikalai Sharakh is his deputy.
On 13 December there
was a trade union meeting with the participation of the deputy
director for human resources and ideology Liudmila
Prop and the head of the
human resources department Yury
Krauchanka. They
represented the position of the Shlovalakno's administration – they
tried to prove that the trade union activists should be fired for
multiple violations.
The deputy director general for human
resources and ideology Liudmila Prop refused to comment on the
situation for the radio.
“I am not obliged to comment on
anything for you. They were fired according to the law for regular
violation of the labour discipline”, - she said.
“The
first complaint about me appeared on 31 October after my interview to
Belsat TV channel about people leaving the pro-government trade
union, which does not protect their rights. For the first time in
many years waste was found among my work and I was fired – they did
not lay me in full. And later once thing came after another: I worked
without glasses on, it meant I violated the professional obligations,
later another waste in the products, more and more… Thus they have
artificially collected a bunch of violations to fire me for “regular
violation of the professional obligations without legitimate
reasons”, - Viktar Stukau said.
Mikalai Sharakh has a
different reason – they want to fire him for alleged absenteeism
from work.
“I had to go to a seminar. According to the
collective agreement, the administration must let the workers go to
such events and even pay the average salary. I submitted all the
documents in the due course and left. But it turned out that they did
not let me go. This is a violation on the part of the administration,
but I was made guilty”, - Mikalai Sharakh says.