As part of the Republican campaign “How do you live, primary?” on March 1, the First Deputy Chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions of the Republic of Kazakhstan Mukhtar Tinikeev met with power engineers of the Pavlodar region – members of the trade union of the NGO “Local Trade Union of Employees of the PavlodarEnergo power system”.
The event was attended by representatives of the labor collectives of JSC “PavlodarEnergo”, JSC “Pavlodar Distribution Electric Grid Company”, LLP “Pavlodar thermal Networks”, LLP “PavlodarEnergoSbyt”, LLP “EkibastuzTeploEnergo”.
At the meeting, representatives of labor collectives raised questions about amendments to the current antimonopoly legislation to establish a social package for power engineers, increase wages, create the possibility of receiving remuneration for vacation, finding a balance between energy development and tariff policy.
According to Vadim Lesin, Deputy General Director-Chief Engineer of PavlodarEnergo JSC, the vertically integrated PavlodarEnergo JSC produces electric and thermal energy, transmits it through the electric networks of PRAK JSC and the thermal networks of PavlodarEnergoSbyt LLP as a natural monopoly entity, whose activities are subject to antimonopoly legislation through the approval of the tariff for services.
“At present, despite the increase in wages, network companies still do not reach the level of the average size in industry at the regional level, there is an outflow of personnel, there is no social package to provide additional benefits and guarantees, for this purpose it is necessary to amend the current antimonopoly legislation,” Vadim Lesin said.
In turn, the chairman of the NGO “Local Trade Union of Employees of the PavlodarEnergo Energy System” Baltabek Toleubayev noted that the trade union, together with social partners, regularly considers ways to solve issues relevant to power engineers.
“For the purpose of social protection and motivation of membership in the trade union, since 2018, the local trade union has introduced the discount program “Trade Union”: contracts have been concluded with 50 partners in the field of trade in food, construction materials, children’s, perfumes, stationery, household appliances, dry cleaning, gas stations, medical services, including optics, dentistry, diagnostics, with discounts from 5 to 25 percent,” Baltabek Toleubayev said.
Along with this, in all five energy enterprises of the PavlodarEnergo group of companies, 70 technical labor protection inspectors conduct public control over compliance with safety regulations.
“According to the collective agreement, when at least four inspections are carried out by technical inspectors, a 10 percent surcharge to wages is made within a month,” the chairman of the local trade union informed.
According to Maya Bespaeva, Chief Specialist of the Occupational Safety and Health Department of PavlodarEnergo JSC, the certification of workplaces in the group of companies has been completed, benefits for working in harmful working conditions have been determined, tariff rate allowances have been established, additional vacation days are provided and special meals are provided. 1C Safety Walk software has been implemented at enterprises – an automated system for the process of registering and analyzing comments when conducting workplace rounds in structural divisions.
As noted by the social partners, they worked together with the trade union on the Regulation on the Production Council, the Regulation on Technical Inspectors and the “Roadmap for Reducing Occupational injuries”.
Having familiarized himself with the situation at the energy enterprises of the Pavlodar region, the First Deputy Chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions of the Republic of Kazakhstan Mukhtar Tinikeev told about the main activities of the FTURK and its member organizations for the protection of social and labor rights and interests of workers.
“Today, the relevant areas of activity of the Federation of Trade Unions of the Republic of Kazakhstan – The most popular public organization is the initiative to amend the Labor Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan to establish annual wage indexation, develop a methodology for determining the minimum wage, simplify the procedure for resolving collective labor disputes, introduce administrative responsibility of the employer for the absence of a conciliation commission, adopt high-quality regional tripartite agreements with the establishment of surcharges, benefits and compensations in addition to those provided for by labor legislation,” Mukhtar Tinikeev said.
Speaking about the development and strengthening of social partnership, the First Deputy Chairman of the FTURK noted that in the Year of social partnership announced by the General Council of the FTURK, issues of the qualitative content of collective agreements at enterprises come to the fore.
“The guarantees prescribed in collective agreements should be real, and this is a mutual task of social partners. Employers should understand that the performance of the entire enterprise depends on their parity dialogue with the workforce,” Mukhtar Tinikeev recalled.
In his opinion, trade union organizations should be created at every enterprise. “Where there are trade unions, there is a minimal risk of labor conflict,” the First Deputy Chairman of the FTURK noted and recommended that “It is necessary to continue work on opening new primary trade union organizations for more effective development of the social partnership system and more professional protection of the interests of employees of enterprises.”
Following the meeting, Moderator Marina Ivanova, Deputy Chairman of the Territorial Association of Trade Unions of the Pavlodar Region, thanked the PavlodarEnergo labor collective and social partners for their joint activities to promote social partnership within the energy sector of the region.
Recall that the local trade union of employees of the PavlodarEnergo power system was established in 2007, the total number of trade union members is 2,300 people.