Unit of Free Trade Union of Steelworkers at Lios Enterprise Is Deprived of Office

The trade union unit of the enterprise “Lios” in Baran (Orsha district) received the official letter from the enterprise director with reference to presidential order, according to which they must either to leave the building or conclude the rent agreement with the Ministry of Communications. Vasil Leuchankau is not sure it will be possible to conclude such agreement:
-- To my mind, it wasn’t the director’s initiative, but pressurization from the above. We have been situated here for more than 12 years and have faced terrible pressurization and intimidation during the last 1,5 years. Some workers were told to leave the trade union for the fear of firing.

Mr. Leuchankau also thinks that deprival of the office contradicts to the collective agreement between the trade union and the employer. However, the administration of the enterprise stated everything was legal:
-- In 2002 there was issued a presidential decree. We didn’t take it into consideration when concluding the agreement between the employer and the trade unions, but then received an explanation related to it, -- stated the assistant director Liubou Isakovich.

According to her, the presidential documents don’t let free renting of the factory’s room to any organizations except for members of the official Federation of Trade Unions. Belarusian Congress of democratic trade unions considers it as trade union discrimination.

The leader of the congress Aliaksandr Iarashuk stated BCDTU had already sent the official protest against the eviction of the trade union unit to the director of Lios enterprise Vital Asialedzets:
-- We reminded Mr. Asialedzets he acted lawlessly, violated the Constitution and the law on trade unions. We also mentioned the monitoring held by the European Commission that could result in deprival of the system of general preferences, which gives about 300 million euro.