As part of the campaign “How do you live, primary?”, the Chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions Satybaldy Dauletalin met with the chairmen of the trade union committees of the flagship of the domestic mining industry – JSC “Sokolovsko-Sarbayskoye Mining and Processing Production Association” and related enterprises.
The online meeting was attended by First Deputy Chairman of the FTURK Mukhtar Tinikeev, Deputy Chairman of the FTURK Nurlan Uteshev, Chairman of the Industrial Mining and Metallurgical Trade Union “Kazprofmetall” Assylbek Nuralin, deputy of the Majilis of the Parliament Ekaterina Smyshlyaeva, Chairman of the Trade Center of Kostanay region Irina Aronova, Chairman of the branch “Kostanay regional organization of the NGO “Industrial Mining and Metallurgical Trade Union “Kazprofmetall” Mikhail Litoshenko, Chairman of the trade union of the Organization of the Union of workers of the SSGPO Tatiana Sherstobitova and the chairmen of the trade union committees of the divisions.
The production association includes Sokolovsky, Sarbaysky, Kacharsky and Kurzhunkul quarries, Sokolovskaya mine, Alekseevsky dolomite mine, enrichment and pellet production factories, metal rolling plant, etc. The company is part of the Eurasian Resources Group (ERG).
The main products of JSC SSGPO are fluxed iron ore pellets and iron ore concentrate, which are raw materials for blast furnace production.
According to the chairman of the trade union committee of the enterprise Tatyana Sherstobitova, the trade union organization has 18,140 people in its ranks. covering almost 100% of the employees of the association and its subsidiaries, more than 7000 pensioners of the enterprise are also under the patronage of the trade union.
The production association consists of 29 structural divisions, each of which has trade union committees.
As Tatiana stressed, 11 of the 29 chairmen are released.
The collective agreement at the enterprise entered into force on January 1, 2021. The average salary at the enterprise is 286 thousand tenge.
“Starting from January next year, it is planned to increase wages by 7%, but the level of growth will be known next year due to an increase in the minimum wage. On the eve of the 30th anniversary of the country’s Independence, all our employees received the 13th salary in the amount of 50 thousand tenge. Thus, the social situation in the team is stable,” Tatyana Sherstobitova said.
The chairmen of the trade union committees reported on the main areas of work. They told about the work carried out in their sub-divisions to fulfill the collective agreement, create decent working conditions, public control, improve legal culture, encourage trade union membership, improve personnel policy, etc.
Chairman of the branch “Kostanay regional organization of the NGO “Branch Mining and Metallurgical Professional Union “Kazprofmetall” Mikhail Litoshenko noted that personnel issues at the enterprise are solved on the basis of a responsible approach. According to him, the training of the personnel reserve, the training of chairmen, as well as improving the legal literacy of trade union members and maintaining continuity in the activities of trade union leaders are carried out on a regular basis.
Chairman of the Branch Mining and Metallurgical Trade Union “Kazprofmetall” Assylbek Nuralin drew the attention of the meeting participants to the topical issues of the enterprise and the industry – increasing wages and lowering the retirement age for workers employed in harmful working conditions.
“Over the past 7-8 years, we have not been able to raise the industry coefficient. Employers say that the minimum wage has been raised since January 1, but this is not a complete solution. Therefore, work in this direction will continue. Recently, a lot of work has been done to conclude an industry agreement for 3 years. In addition, we have worked on a number of issues, for example, on the intercategory coefficient. At the end of this year, we plan to sign a trilateral industry agreement, which will enter into force on January 1 next year,” Assylbek Nuralin said.
Answering the question about lowering the retirement age, Deputy of the Mazhilis of the Parliament Ekaterina Smyshlyaeva said that the only way to legislatively reduce the retirement age is a pension annuity. The deputy stressed the need to increase wages, solve the problems of the social package by strengthening the institution of social partnership.
First Deputy Chairman of the FTURK Mukhtar Tinikeev believes that a pension annuity is not the only way out.
“The retirement age should be established by requiring an increase in wages and mandatory pension contributions paid by the employer,” Mukhtar Tinikeev said.
The Chairman of the FTURK Satybaldy Dauletalin asked about the work of the production council on labor protection at the enterprise and measures to encourage technical inspectors.
He thanked the professional leaders for their daily responsible work, noting that the primary trade union organization carries out its activities in accordance with the values of the trade union.
Satybaldy Dauletalin called on professional leaders to widely disseminate the positive experience of their work among other professional organizations.
According to Tatyana Sherstobitova, in each of the 29 divisions there are production councils, which include the chairmen of trade union committees. She noted that since the beginning of the year, 2 accidents have been registered at the enterprise.
“The Council reports on its activities once a month. During the inspection, technical inspectors are relieved of their main duties,” Tatyana Sherstobitova said.
The Chairman of the FTURK, in turn, stressed that as of November 1 this year, 1,027 accidents were registered at the country’s enterprises, as a result of which 1104 people were injured. At the same time, according to him, the mining and metallurgical industry is the leader in terms of the number of victims.
“Labor safety is an issue that both the Branch Trade Union and local and primary trade union organizations should pay special attention to. You have to keep this issue under control on a daily basis,” Satybaldy Dauletalin said.
The Chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions noted that according to the statistics of the FTURK, most accidents occur at enterprises where there are no trade unions.
“In percentage terms, 64.2 percent of accidents were registered at enterprises without trade unions. What does it mean? This means that there is public control at the enterprise with trade union participation. According to the results of the investigation of these accidents, the employer’s guilt has been proven by 64%, that is, the employer is to blame for most accidents,” he said.
Summing up the meeting, Satybaldy Dauletalin focused on the tasks outlined in the Strategy of the Federation of Trade Unions for 2020-2025. In particular, he stressed the achievements of the FTURK in the issue of improving the remuneration system.
“The issues discussed today and the ways to solve them are reflected in the Strategy of the Federation of Trade Unions. The first important issue is the improvement of the remuneration system. To do this, we need to bring national legislation in line with international standards. In particular, first of all, it is necessary to ratify the ILO Convention No. 131 “on the establishment of minimum wages with special consideration for developing countries”. Secondly, the Strategy indicates the absence of a methodology for determining the minimum wage in Kazakhstan. In addition, we have identified the need to establish mandatory annual wage indexation in the legislation. To date, analyzing the collective agreement, we have found that only 10% of the annual mandatory indexation is approved. This means that in 90% of cases the issue cannot be resolved through negotiations. Thirdly, we have identified the need to define in the legislation the concepts of “consumer budget”, “consumer basket”, “subsistence minimum”, “poverty line” with the approval of methods of their calculation and regulation of application. Unfortunately, this issue has not yet been resolved. As you remember, in 2015 we conducted a serious analysis to determine the composition of the consumer basket, we intend to provide the government with methods for calculating them. In our Strategy, we stated the need to revise the composition and structure of the consumer basket, taking into account changes in the socio-economic situation. This year, in his Address to the People of Kazakhstan, the President of Kazakhstan instructed the Government to increase the minimum wage from the current 42.5 thousand tenge to 60 thousand tenge from January 1, 2022. Thus, the initiative to raise the minimum wage has been raised by the Federation of Trade Unions at various venues since last year,” Satybaldy Dauletalin said.
“This is just the first step. The Federation of Trade Unions strives for a gradual increase in the minimum wage to a level that meets international standards. The system of remuneration for enterprises is determined by the employer. This means, first of all, that member organizations, primary trade union organizations should try to change the wage system at a particular enterprise, industry through a collective agreement and an industry agreement. Unfortunately, there is no such job. We need to talk about this openly. Therefore, we need to prepare as much as possible for these negotiations, set strict requirements and take a step forward every year,” Satybaldy Dauletalin said.
In conclusion, the Chairman of the FTURK said that a meeting of the General Council of the Federation of Trade Unions will be held on December 24, at which detailed information on the activities of the Federation and its member organizations in 2021 will be presented. It should be noted that the policy of openness is a new practice in the activities of trade unions.It was announced by the Federation of Trade Unions at the XXVI Congress in September 2020.
Media Center of the Federation of Trade Unions of the Republic of Kazakhstan