Worker justified, but wage bonus not returned

The Maskouski District Court of Brest considered the lawsuit of an operator of the ammonium refrigerating plants of the "Savushkin Product" open corporation Uladzimir Andrashuk, and took a half-hearted decision.

In the lawsuit the operator asked to abolish the admonition, issued to him by the director general of the enterprise Aliaksandr Sauchyts for alleged violation of the temperature regime and return him the 50% of the wage bonus, which was not paid for him as a punishment. Uladzimir Andrashchuk does not consider himself guilty of the excess of the temperature in the refrigerator plants for 2 degrees Celsius in the curds workshop, which lead to a failure during his being on duty. He liquidated the failure within several minutes after its occurrence and no harm was done to the enterprise as a result. Mr. Andrashchuk had no admonitions for 37 years of his work. Nevertheless, he was punished as a result of this incident. The workers considers it as a result of the hostile attitude towards him on the part of the new head of the workshop.

The court granted the lawsuit only partially: it ruled that the the admonition was to be abolished, but the 50% of the wage bonus was not to be returned – as the incident really happened.

The legal inspector of the Trade Union of Radio-electronic Industry in the Brest region, human rights defender Uladzimir Malei, who represented Andrashchuk's interests at the trial, considers the court verdict as unlawful, and asks a logical question: what for was the 50% of the wage bonus not paid to the worker?

The deputy director general on production Volha Luchyts explained the position of the enterprise in the following way: workers must be punished for any failures in their work, as chaos with unpredictable consequences can start if everything is forgiven.

Uladzimir Andrashchuk intends to appeal the court verdict at the regional court.