Belarus: the Untold Story of Anti-Union Repression

Belarus: the Untold Story of Anti-Union Repression

After years of attempts at moral persuasion, repeated recommendations and several on-the-spot missions, the UN's International Labour Organization (ILO) has now decided to set up a Commission of Inquiry to investigate allegations of labour rights abuses in Belarus. A decision which, Belarus trade unionists hope, will help restore freedom of association in the country and mobilise the international community in the face what they describe as an increasingly repressive regime.

A briefing paper by the Secretariat of the Workers' Group of the ILO

It all started on August 15, 1995. Who would have noticed the action of those 500 workers in the city of Gomyel, south east of Belarus, who bravely refused to drive their buses? They had not received their salary of the previous month and were asking for a pay increase. They earned 65 dollars a month. Two days later in the Belarusian capital, their colleagues of the Minsk metro voted to strike demanding the payment of wage arrears. In Gomyel, six strikers were immediately dismissed, tens of others followed later. In Minsk, strikers were detained by the ill-famed special police of the Interior Ministry (OMON), and taken to the sports hall at a nearby military base. Among them was Vladimir Markachuk, chairman of the trade union committee of Metro workers from the free trade union of Belarus (SPB). The regime showed its determination to break independent trade unionism by sentencing Markachuk to 15 days of prison and to other trade union leaders for 10 days. Other than 400 grams of black bread and a cup of water every other day, food was denied to Markachuk and his fellow workers. Things then took a more rapid pace. On August 21, a "Decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus, No. 336" entered into force. Entitled "Measures to ensure stability and law and order" it basically suspended the right to strike in many industries . The true face of the regime of President Alyaksandar Lukashenka was revealed. From this time on attacks on democracy and independent trade unions never stopped.

At the end of August 1995 international trade union organisations brought the information to the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO) in the form of a formal complaint for violation of Freedom of Association. Like 142 other Member States of the ILO, Belarus has ratified ILO Convention No. 87 which recognizes the right of workers freely to form or join trade union organisations. This implies obligations for the government. And the ILO has set in place monitoring mechanisms to make sure its member State do observe what they have committed themselves to respect in joining this unique UN agency.

In dealing with "case 1849", the ILO Committee of Freedom, a tripartite body composed of representatives from governments, employers and trade unions, adopted its first recommendations in 1996. It asked the government to change its anti union legislation and to refrain from using police to break legitimate strike or from imprisoning trade unionists and to reinstate dismissed workers.

But bad habits die hard. On September 18 2003, Alexander Yaroshuk, President of the Congress of Democratic Trade Unions of Belarus (BKDP) was arrested and sentenced to ten days administrative arrest for having published an article criticizing a court decision to disband the country's independent union of air traffic controllers. The arrest came only one week after an ILO mission visited the country to discuss implementation of recommendations that have repeatedly been made to the Belarus authorities following complaints lodged against the government for violation of freedom of association. To no avail. On October 17, a judge of Minsk's Kastrychnitski District sentenced Uladzimir Adynets, the BKPD's and Yaroshuk's lawyer to five days of administrative arrest in connection with another case. In fact, ever since 1995, trade union life has been disrupted in Belarus. In May 1996, a three-member delegation from Poland's Solidarnosc union led by its President Marian Krzaklewski who came to visit Belarus trade unions was deported. The Polish unionists were stopped by officers of the Presidential Police and taken to the police station where they were told that they had to leave the country forthwith. Following the deportation, local trade unionists who had met the delegation were harassed and accused of having participated in illegal meetings.

"Denial of trade union registration, government interference in trade union activities and dismissals of trade unionists". So reads the allegations consigned in cases still being examined today by the ILO Committee of Freedom of Association.

Looking at the economics of the country and the situation of workers, no wonder why the regime is trying to silence the voice of trade unions. Claims by the government that the earnings of the population are increasing have to be taken cautiously indeed. With a stagnant unrestructured economy the level of real wage is low and according to experts, will prove impossible to maintain in the future. In addition, wage arrears totalled millions of dollars (billions of roubles) and hundreds of thousands of workers have no other choice than receiving their salaries in kind. Per capita income nationwide was approximately 56 US dollars per month in 2002 but two thirds of the 4,5 million working population were said to survive below this level. A third of the population lives under the poverty line.

"Under the regime of President Alyaksandar Lukashenka, Belarus has become a virtual pariah state, synonymous with steep economic decline, severe repression and violation of trade union and human rights on a massive scale" wrote in a detailed report the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) one of the complainants in a series of cases on Belarus before the ILO. The ICFTU document details attacks on trade union rights ranging from making union meetings illegal, suspending social dialogue and imprisonning and harassing trade union leaders to carefully planned manoeuvre to take control of labour groups by setting up "yellow unions" acting in connivance with the State and the directors of enterprises.

Despite an arsenal of measures to stifle the labour movement, which included a ban on check-off system, a freeze of unions Bank accounts, obstacle to union registration, dismissal of activists and the setting up of pro-government trade unions in factories, trade unions have remained active in the country. Partly because of the attention paid to them at international level, including by the ILO which has repeatedly asked for freedom of association to be respected. And above all because of the determination of local leaders. In fact the President of the Federation of Belarus of Trade Unions (FPB), Vladimir Gontcharik, became so popular that the democratic opposition chose him to run in the September 2001 presidential elections against Lukashenka. However in a fraud election Mr, Lukashenka made sure that he got 75 per cent of the votes. Vladimir Gontcharik had tried for years to develop some sort of social dialogue and mutual respect with the state authorities, when he finally became convinced that this was not the intention of Mr. Lukashenka he became instrumental in reforming the old official trade union structure inherited from the Soviet system into an independent trade union organisation.

Having failed to destroy the union movement, the administration then opted for another approach: taking over the Federation of Belarus Trade Unions and use it as an instrument of power. The move was orchestrated by the Ideological department of the Presidential Administration. The Bank accounts were frozen and the established check-off system to deduct trade union contributions from the salaries was forbidden by presidential degree retroactively to starve the trade unions from financial resources. Vladimir Gontcharik's decision to step down as a chairman of the 4 million strong FPB did not satisfy the President. Frantz Vitko, a former vice-president of the trade union who took over from Goncharik, was to become the next victim. After his election in December 2001, blackmail and threats was exerted on leaders from FPB unions to push for change in the leadership. In July 2002, pressure on Vitko became such that he was forced to step down and a "new leader" was "elected". His name: Leonid Kozik. His previous job: Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration. The next target was Aleksandr Starykevich who had transformed the FPB publication, Belaruskii Chas, into a leading newspaper respected for its analysis and independent views. "When Kozik became head of the FPB he proposed to remove me, but to the real surprise of everybody the Presidium of the Union refused to dismiss me. Only 12 out of the 34 executive board members voted with Kozik", remembers Starykevich who was eventually sacked. Now an editor of "Solidarnast" he still faces regular harassment by the regime's secret police the name of which, KGB, needs no further explanation.

Another page of the takeover chapter was turned on September 10, 2002 when Aleksandr Yaroshuk, who was then president of the Agro-Industrial Union in the FPB, was replaced by deputy minister, Vladimir Samosyuk. More was to come. On December 19, 2002, the leader-ship of the FPB took the initiative to organise a plenary meeting of the Auto- and Agricultural Machinery Industry Workers Union (ASM). The objective was to remove Aliaksandr Bukhvostau, the ASM President, and to replace him by someone loyal to Leonid Kozik, and to the Belarus presidential administration. Kozik's efforts however failed as a majority of the delegates expressed their support for Aliaksandr Bukhvostau and retained him as the president of the union. Later during that month, Gennadii Fedynich, the President of the Radio Electronic Workers Union (REP) also succeeded in getting the support of a majority of the plenary delegates of his union in spite of strong pressure exercised on them. Although in these two unions, the FPB leadership has failed to gain control, it probably will not tolerate it for long. The proposal of Kozik is to accelerate the setting up of "Associations of Industrial Unions". Industrial unions will be asked to reorganise and to merge, which offers new opportunities for the FPB to get rid of the "independent-minded" and "trouble-maker" leaders. Now the Minister of Industry is demanding from company management to take the necessary steps that company unions leave the independent trade unions and subordinate under the new fully controlled structure. According to information from Belarusian sources, after the visit of the ILO mission earlier this year, the Vice-Minister for Industry has been visiting major industrial enterprises to put pressure on the management and local union leaders to ensure that the enterprise and the workers do not support the two trade union leaders, Buxhvostov and Fedinitsh, whom the President of the country, Mr. Lukashenko publicly has requested removed. The enterprises have the "choice" either to support the removal of the two leaders or loose state contracts and credits.

On October 30 2003, Aliaksandr Bukhvostau was detained by police as he was holding a picket at Octyabrskaya square. He had hardly time to unfold his banner which said "We protest against violation of workers' rights". True, the authorities had warned him that he could only picket in the deserted Bangalor square far from the centre of Minsk. But the idea was to attract the attention of Belarusian society, the leadership of the country and the international community. Octyabrskaya square was a much better place for that. It was also more dangerous.

Also trade union organisations that do not belong to the FPB and were set up as alternative to official unions during the Soviet times are under permanent pressure. The Congress of Democratic Trade Unions of Belarus (KDPB), which used to cooperate with the FPB at the time of its short-lived independence had to bear immediately the brunt of the changing course. The KDPB which had a renting contract with FPB (which still owns the assets and buildings of the Soviet era trade unions) saw its rent increased by ten times. Yaroshuk who had been elected as the President of the KPDB after he was removed as elected president of the agricultural workers is still clearly in the eyes of the regime.

As he left prison on September 29, he said "Our authorities cannot imagine what the international trade union movement is. My ten days of imprisonment will cost a lot. I am sure they will cost them dearly".

When workers' delegates at this June's International Labour Conference called for a Commission of Inquiry to be set up to investigate freedom of association in Belarus, they could not anticipate the further deterioration of the trade union rights situation in Belarus. But they had already had enough with years of systematic refusal by the Belarus regime to follow the recommendations of the ILO supervisory bodies.

Actually employers at the ILO also thought that time was ripe for sterner measures. A last year's conference, the employers' group supported the move by the workers' representatives to have the Belarus case consigned in a special paragraph of the report of the Committee on the Application of Standards, a procedure used for the most serious cases.

Whether the decision of the Governing Body to establish a Commission of Enquiry will make a difference is anybody's guess. But the Belarus government may be wise to remember that also in the countries that continuously violate international standards face growing international pressure and negative political and economic consequences. Reports from the ILO have already led the US Administration to withdraw custom privileges to export from Belarus and the European Union is now reviewing a complaint requesting similar action. The European Parliament already said it was in favour of depriving Belarus of the benefits of the EU Generalized system of preferences.

More information about anti-union repression in Belarus:

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