European Trade Unions Mission Advises Kiev to Set Up State Fund to Ensure Wages Payment

KIEV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th February, 2020) The joint monitoring mission of the European Trade Unions Confederation (ETUC) and the International Trade Unions Confederation recommended that the authorities of Ukraine focus on guaranteeing payment of wages without delays and create a relevant state fund, the mission's head and ETUC general secretary, Luca Visentini, said on Thursday.

The trade unions' monitoring mission worked in Ukraine from Tuesday through Thursday. The mission met with the country's trade unions, the parliament's committee on the protection of social rights and veterans' rights, and Ukraine's economic development minister, Tymofiy Mylovanov, to discuss the most pressing issues, including the country's controversial labor reformation, non-payment of wages and the "brain drain."

"It's not enough to talk about moral suasion towards the companies or to say that the criminal law should prevent companies [from] not paying wages.

There is a need to create tools to make sure that wages are paid, including funds managed by the state to intervene when a company is not able or not willing to pay wages to the people," Visentini said at a press conference broadcast by the Ukrinform agency.

The mission also issued recommendations to the Ukrainian authorities regarding sustainable and inclusive economic development, low salaries and the outflow of labor from Ukraine, he said.

"The mission was quite successful, because we had not only the opportunity to present our claims and demands to the various institutions and other stakeholders, but also in the end to get some commitments," Visentini said.

The minimum salary in Ukraine in 2019 increased by slightly more than 10 percent to 4,100 hryvnias ($180) while, according to the State Statistics Service, the average salary by the end of the year was about 10,700 hryvnias in the country and about 16,000 hryvnias in Kiev.