Today, on the International Labour Protection Day, our country,
unfortunately, has no achievements to report in this field.
The Russian United Democratic Party YABLOKO states that the
constitutional right of the Russian citizens to labour protection
and realization of the right to labour meeting the requirements
of safety and social stability are completely violated.
Even the official statistics demonstrates that labour and
health of workers are under threat. According to the data
from the Ministry of Health Care and Social Development, working
conditions of every fifth worker are unsatisfactory.
Most of violations of the labour rights are connected with
non-observance of the labour protection law. Direct loss from
occupational traumatism in the Russian Federation is 250 times
higher than in the US and the EU countries. Also the Russian
labour law has many gaps leading to mass-scale lawlessness
of the workers.
For example, the Russian Labour Code does not contain a notion
of labour contract. The Code does not envisage the responsibility
of the employer to provide work to the employee. The owner
of the company is not liable by his income or property for
the company’s performance and damage to the health and life
of the workers. Thus, the employers are, on one hand, often
interested in bankruptcy of their companies and even prepare
such bankruptcies, on the other hand, they neglect labour
protection norms considering them unprofitable.
A socially irresponsible business at the negligence of the
state takes advantage of the hard position of the employees
who have to work in the enslaving conditions which in the
end results in ousting of qualified labour force – from academics
to blue collars – from the market. The desire to get here-and-now
profits completely ousts the care about the future. The complex
of these problems in the labour protection field annually
costs hundreds of lives and thousands of workers become handicapped.
At the same time laws targeted at exempting the state from
its key function – regulation and protection of human rights
and liberties are adopted. The state transfers the function
of control over observance of labour protection rules to the
self-regulating organisations that can not be liable for the
life and health of the workers.
The Russian United Democratic Party YABLOKO demands from
the Russian government to
1. stop transfer of labour protection functions from the
state to the self-regulating organisations; return the right
to control observance of labour norms to the trade unions;
2. create a system of monitoring of labour protection law
violations;
3. introduce via the State Duma amendments to the Labour Code
laying the material liability (from personal income and property)
for the damage to life and health of the workers, their release
resulting from bankruptcy and wage arrears on the companies’
owners ;
4. introduce amendments to the Administrative and the Criminal
Code of the RF envisaging punishment for negligent employers
for creation of conditions leading to violation of labour
protection norms.
Sergei Mitrokhin,
Chairman of the YABLOKO party
See also:
Human
Rights
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