Authorities ban May Day meetings
Minsk city executive committee has not sanctioned an opposition meeting on 1 May, says Valery Ukhnaliou, deputy chairman of the United Leftist Party “Fair World”.
Mikhail Kavalkou, Babruisk leader of the Belarusian Free Trade Union, has lodged a complaint with the town’s prosecuting officials, after he has been unable to access his office located on the territory of local Tractor Supplies Plant, Euroradio reports, quoting the web-site of the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions.
The Conference Committee on the Application of Standards of the International Labor Organization (ILO) will look at violations of trade union rights in Belarus at a meeting to take place in Geneva between June 4 and 9.
Zinaida Mikhniuk, the head of Brest regional branch of the Trade Union of Radio Electronic Industry, wasn't allowed to hold a picket of solidarity with Aleh Stakhayevich, the head of an independent trade-union branch at the "Granite" enterprise in Mikashevichy who was fired for his trade-union activities.
Mrs. Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, has addressed President Lukashenka with an appeal concerning violations of workers’ rights at the Mikashevichy-based Granit state-owned enterprise, the web-site of the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions reports.
On 9 February the labor contract of Aliaksei Paulouski with the building organization “Pramzhylbud” expired. The administration of the organization decided not to extend it. Being a member of the independent trade union, Aliaksei struggled for the improvement of the work conditions and the rights of workers, including the earlier retirement from work due to the harmful work conditions.
Six days ago Leanid Hladzevich, a driver working at the “Granite” plant in the city of Mikashevichy, went on a hunger-strike of protest against the pressurization of members of the independent trade-union and deprivation of the head of its local unit, Aleh Stakhayevich, of driver's license for six months.
When workers of the brigade where Aliaksei Paulouski works learned that the administration of the “Pramzhylbud” firm had refused to extend his labor contract, they wrote applications for resigning from work to express their solidarity with him.