Dnipropetrovsk trade unions propose public hearings in parliament over decent wages

Dnipropetrovsk trade unions have announced that they are calling for public hearings in the Verkhovna Rada and for laws to be drawn up providing legal guarantees for decent levels of pay.  The existing legislation, in their opinion, leaves employers too much scope for abuse.

In the first instance the new laws should stipulate mechanisms of compensation to workers for delays in paying them their wages, member of the Dnipropetrovsk regional association of trade unions, Yury Vorontsov, explained. He believes that the presently available administrative and criminal sanctions against employers which as a result of court practice and the negligible size of the administrative fines do not work and need to be replaced by economic sanctions, for example, additional payments to workers and to the budget. In addition the trade unions are proposing creating “guarantee funds for wages”  within enterprises which would make sure that wages were paid in the event of bankruptcy. The latter should become the subject of a new law which would protect the enterprise from so-called fictitious bankruptcies. According to trade union figures, at present in different instance courts such cases are being considered against at least one hundred enterprises of the region. Their employees are owed over 60 million UH.