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Covid-19 has a pretext for delaying inspections at the Ukrainian office, which makes it more difficult to fight for decent work.
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On 6 July this year, a tragic incident occurred in a structure in Kiev. According to an edition of the facts, a tower crane operator in a structure in the northwest of the city, a young father who enjoyed his homework, committed suicide. Apparently, he jumped out of the cockpit window of the 16-story crane after discovering that his wife had cheated on him.
Commenting on these rumors, his Guyager said: “He worked for our company for 8 years. A general, moderate guy committed suicide. I don’t know why other people do that. Whether you have a non-refundable debt or something, I haven’t heard anything about it. We have smart corporations: no one had a challenge with the deceased. All I know is that on the day of his death, he called his circle of family and friends and asked them to forgive him. said he had acted irreversibly on social media. It is very unlikely that you will fall off this type of crane by accident ».
Ukraine’s crane operators’ union is skeptical of this interpretation. “Unscrupulous employers are willing to deploy the ultimate despicable tactics so as not to lose money. That’s why we’re looking for other versions of the crane operator’s death: we sought to separate the testimonies of the other people who worked with the deceased rumors and data they heard from the owners’ representatives and the subcontractor. Array »
For asset developers in Ukraine, when a shift from fate to the site occurs, the transfer of duty to staff is not a rare step. For example, after the death of Lida Hurina’s growl on the site of a structure on Kiev’s left bank in 2014, his employer braided as a “bad worker” and a “disordered worker.” However, according to her colleagues from other companies, Hurina is a style employee.
It would be naive to assume that The Staff at Twist of Fate is “not sufficiently informed” of the dangers to their health. Ukraine does not have a functioning establishment capable of responding to labour rights violations
Unfortunately, since 2014, the death rate in Ukraine has continued to deteriorate. Between 2015 and 2019, the number of deaths in Ukraine increased by 13%.
According to the first voluntary national review of the Sustainable Development Goals in Ukraine, progress in ensuring safe and reliable career situations is absent or incredibly weak. The main points that cause injury in the paintings are: non-compliance with ty’s commands at the site of the paintings, non-compliance with management obligations and violation of ty and transportation regulations.
It would be naive to assume that The Staff at Twist of Fate is “not sufficiently informed” of the dangers to their health. Ukraine does not have a functioning establishment capable of responding to labour rights violations. Almost all of Ukraine’s state oversight bodies have been reorganized into the State Labour Inspectorate, whose powers are eroding under pressure from the corporate lobby.
Instead of monitoring and tracking the activities of Ukrainian employers, public labour inspection now spends its time consulting and explaining. Sometimes it can scratch on the absurd. For example, a worker reports a violation of labor rights and, in response, the labour inspection calls the employer and asks him what the situation is. After being notified, the employer may “classify” the worker instead of the violation. In the meantime, the inspection recommends that workers whose rights are violated “work legally.” Up to 30% of the Ukrainian workforce is potentially involved in casual work.
Since the beginning of quarantine in Ukraine, some state facilities have been able to increase their online potency, but some paintings must be done digitally. For example, registering as an unemployed user has become easier. Prior to quarantine, official statistics warned that there were 100,000 jobs for 300,000 unemployed in Ukraine. After the quarantine began, 500,000 unemployed people had to compete for 60,000 jobs. As a result, labour inspection boards (“Do not paint on the submerged economy”) have not been implemented.
Protecting workers’ rights on Ukrainian structure sites is more difficult. First, in March, Ukraine’s National Architecture and Construction Inspectorate was permanently closed. At the time of writing, 8 other people are lately applying to replace it, the Public Construction Inspectorate. Ukraine’s cabinet of ministers said that this new inspection had begun to work, but this is not true: in June 2020, he may not write to the new inspection: all correspondence has been returned to the sender. Turns out in those five months you can build whatever you want, whatever you want.
Second, for the past five months, the inspection of Ukraine’s labour (and the inspection of structures in April) has been responding to reports of labour rights violations with popular responses, stating that on-site inspections are more unlikely due to quarantine. This limits the area to legally protect labor rights. On the one hand, Ukrainian ministers, parliamentarians and officials visited the pandemic’s restaurants and cafes. On the other hand, they necessarily banned inspections of these workplaces for unreported work. For the fifth month in a row, others who bring food to our officials, take them to the city, deliver goods and offer other facilities have not been able to legally protect their rights in the workplace.
Covid-19 has intensified abusive movements of employers with bad religions and made it more difficult to combat it because of better career conditions. Of course, the inspection of Ukraine’s architecture and structure was closed before quarantine measures were implemented, and the State Labour Inspectorate simply “forgot” to load a segment on paint injuries on its new website. The inspection no longer publishes daily statistics on injury in tables, now publishes them only on demand.
There has been no inspection in the last five months; you can avoid paying your employees, or you can locate others who, due to unemployment, will expect empty long-term payment promises.
Employers sometimes point out that left-wing activists and industry union activists “demonize” employers in Ukraine. “Yes, we demonize entrepreneurs,” Antonio dos Santos, ILO representative in Ukraine, said in a recent online course. “But if we didn’t have to deal with those incidents from time to time, then there would be nothing to discuss.”
Under capitalism, paying for the funeral of one or two employees is just one line of a company’s budget. The dead are returned to their families and the employers’ bank accounts continue to spin.
This article was originally published in Ukrainian in Commons. We translated it here with permission.
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