Trade unions urge the President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Japarov to re-veto the draft law on trade unions. The Chairman of the Central Committee of the Mining and Metallurgical Trade Union, Eldar Tadzhibaev, said.
He reminded that a month ago, the head of state returned the bill, adopted by the deputies on March 31, 2021 to the Parliament of the Kyrgyz Republic with his objections. The initiators hastily prepared an «agreed» draft law during June, achieved its approval at a meeting of the Committee on Social Issues and adopted it at a parliamentary session on June 30, 2021.
At the same time, representatives of trade unions and employers’ associations were not included in the conciliation group, as the head of state demanded.
«The bill was passed by the deputies without taking into account the opinion of the government of Kyrgyzstan, trade unions, international organizations. It deprives workers of the right to freedom of association and flagrantly violates the conventions of the International Labor Organization. Therefore, it was returned to Parliament. The draft law, adopted on June 30, violates these international norms even more,» Eldar Tadzhibaev believes.
It also establishes strict frameworks and conditions for the activities of representative bodies, including the Federation of Trade Unions. Moreover, the draft law includes a whole chapter that sets rather detailed conditions for the formation of working bodies, the timing and procedure for election of the governing bodies of the Federation of Trade Unions of Kyrgyzstan.
These conditions must be established by the Charter of the Federation.
Eldar Tadzhibaev
An absolute monopoly of the Federation was established as the only trade union body — social partner of the highest state power of Kyrgyzstan. The bill adopted by the deputies provides for the financing of the activities of the Federation of Trade Unions of Kyrgyzstan by the Cabinet of Ministers of the Kyrgyz Republic, which is not provided for by the law of the Kyrgyz Republic on the republican budget.
«Adoption of this law will entail exclusion of Kyrgyzstan from the GSP + program, which gives the right to duty-free trade with the EU countries. This is a serious blow to producers and the loss of the sales market. Several UN notes verbale, objections from the International Labor Organization, International Trade Union Associations, and non-governmental organizations were sent to the country’s leadership on this issue,» Eldar Tadzhibaev told.
«About 70,000 signatures of citizens against the infringement of the rights to freedom of association have been collected and sent to the Presidential Administration. We appeal to the head of state with a request to re-use the constitutional law and return the anti-constitutional, anti-people draft law to the deputies for revision. Articles 70 and 87 of the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan allow doing this,» he said.
