Members of Free Trade Union fired from "Shklovalakno" plant

According to the collective agreement, the employer must ask the trade union for permission to fire people. The free trade union does not allow firing their leaders, RFE/RL reports.

On 5 December the enterprise’s administration send an official letter to the Free trade union regarding the dismissal of the operator of the workshop No 7 Viktar Stukau and the master’s assistant of the same workshop Mikalai Sharakh. Viktar Stukau is the head of the Free trade union’s subsidiary at the "Shklovalakno" ("Glass Fiber") enterprise in Polatsk, Mikalai Sharakh is his deputy.

On 13 December there was a trade union meeting with the participation of the deputy director for human resources and ideology Liudmila Prop and the head of the human resources department Yury Krauchanka. They represented the position of the Shlovalakno's administration – they tried to prove that the trade union activists should be fired for multiple violations.

The deputy director general for human resources and ideology Liudmila Prop refused to comment on the situation for the radio.

“I am not obliged to comment on anything for you. They were fired according to the law for regular violation of the labour discipline”, - she said.

“The first complaint about me appeared on 31 October after my interview to Belsat TV channel about people leaving the pro-government trade union, which does not protect their rights. For the first time in many years waste was found among my work and I was fired – they did not lay me in full. And later once thing came after another: I worked without glasses on, it meant I violated the professional obligations, later another waste in the products, more and more… Thus they have artificially collected a bunch of violations to fire me for “regular violation of the professional obligations without legitimate reasons”, - Viktar Stukau said.

Mikalai Sharakh has a different reason – they want to fire him for alleged absenteeism from work.

“I had to go to a seminar. According to the collective agreement, the administration must let the workers go to such events and even pay the average salary. I submitted all the documents in the due course and left. But it turned out that they did not let me go. This is a violation on the part of the administration, but I was made guilty”, - Mikalai Sharakh says.