Belarus Liquidates Free Trade Unions

Date: 17 June 2002

At an 11 June meeting, the Ideological Department of the Belarus government headed by President Alexander Lukashenko took the decision to liquidate the ICFTU affiliated Federation of Trade Unions (FTUB) until September.

The decision has been condemned as an outrage by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU).

Since coming in power in 1994, Alexander Lukashenko has repressed trade union activities to the point where functioning is a virtual impossibility.

The latest move comes in a long line of Presidential decrees which have contravened a litany of internationally accepted standards including at least 6 ILO core conventions on trade union rights.

Under his new legislation, Lukashenko is aiming to replace the country's free trade union with an association of government-friendly company unions.

The system would virtual mirror the trade union associations created by multinationals with governmental support in Russia which were subsequently not recognised by the international trade union movement.

In its 2001 annual survey of trade union rights to be released on June 18, the ICFTU labelled Belarus as being 'an unabridged encyclopaedia of trade union rights violations.'

In a related event this week, Belarus was elected as a deputy member of the Governing Body of the ILO (which makes decisions on ILO policy).

Cautiously welcoming the decision, ICFTU Secretary General Guy Ryder explained that "their election to the ILO can be viewed in a positive light, since their new status can be used as leverage in improving the dire situation of trade union rights in the country."

The ICFTU represents 157 million workers in 225 affiliated organisations in 148 countries and territories. ICFTU is also a member of Global Unions: http://www.global-unions.org

For further information

Union:	Labor Council of NSW
WWW:	http://www.icftu.org

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