On Thursday, January 12, Chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions of the Republic of Kazakhstan Satybaldy Dauletalin took part in a meeting of the expanded board of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Population in Astana. The meeting was held with the participation of Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Alikhan Smailov, Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Altai Kulginov, Minister Tamara Duissenova, as well as deputies of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan, representatives of central and regional state bodies, and other interested parties.
Opening the meeting, Minister of Labor and Social Protection of the Population of the Republic of Kazakhstan Tamara Duissenova spoke about the results of the activities of the Ministry of Health in 2022 and the tasks for 2023.
Speaking about the main results of the Ministry’s work in 2022, she stressed that the fulfillment of the state’s social obligations to the population was fully ensured. In addition, work was intensified to expand the employment of citizens within the framework of the implementation of 10 national projects, the instructions of the Head of State to create 100 jobs per 10,000 people and other employment promotion projects.
“This allowed, firstly, to employ more than 981,000 citizens, 80% of whom confirmed their jobs by deductions of mandatory pension contributions. Secondly, to create 427.4 thousand new jobs in the economy, more than 70% of which are new individual entrepreneurs and legal entities, whose registration and functioning are confirmed by the State Revenue Committee of the Ministry of Finance,” the head of the department said.
Tamara Duissenova spoke about the measures taken to protect the labor rights of employees.
“Together with local executive bodies, monitoring of 256 enterprises included in the risk group was organized. The measures taken jointly with social partners allowed to resolve the situation at 148 enterprises, pay off wage debts in the amount of over 5 billion tenge and increase wages from 5 to 50% for more than 2 million employees. In general, the implementation of a Single algorithm for preventing labor conflicts, approved by the Government, made it possible to reduce their number by almost 5 times in the second half of the year,” the minister stressed.
The initiatives of the Federation of Trade Unions of the Republic of Kazakhstan on further measures to improve social and labor relations and prevent labor conflicts in the country were made by the Chairman of the FTURK Satybaldy Dauletalin.
According to the Head of the FTURK, for many years the most urgent problem is an unfair system of redistribution of income and expenses between an employee and an employer.
“The strong-willed initiative of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to increase the salaries of teachers, doctors, the size of the minimum wage, the introduction of a luxury tax is a good example of changing the situation. In this regard, we consider it necessary to accelerate the resolution of issues on the adoption of the methodology for determining the minimum wage; ratification of the ILO Convention No. 131 “On the establishment of minimum wages with special consideration for developing countries”; legislative consolidation of employers’ obligations to conduct annual wage indexation,” said Satybaldy Dauletalin.
According to him, these solutions will allow to change the system of income distribution at each enterprise. The Chairman of the FTURK noted that the state cannot act as a supervisor monitoring compliance with the rules at each enterprise. So, it is necessary to expand the rights of trade unions in the sphere of public control. It is also important to strengthen state control over compliance with labor legislation by significantly increasing the number of state labor inspectors.
As the Chairman of the FTURK noted, the trade unions are particularly concerned about the facts confirming that social tension in the country is not decreasing. Recall that last year, along with enterprises of the real sector, labor conflicts this year arose in organizations of emergency medical care, mail, professional paramilitary emergency rescue service and others. The facts are revealed when some irresponsible employers are trying to form an opinion in society about trade unions as a reactionary, anti-constructive force that prevents the natural action of market competition and reduces the efficiency of production.
“In this regard, I want to responsibly state that trade unions and workers have never been and are not a source of social tension. The sources of conflicts are the violation of workers’ rights, the situation with their incomes, which indicates the presence of systemic problems in all spheres. The Federation of Trade Unions considers it necessary to re-consider our proposals to amend labor legislation in terms of: simplifying procedures for the nomination of workers’ claims and resolving labor disputes, including granting this right to the trade union of the enterprise; tightening the responsibility of employers for refusing to create a conciliation commission or labor arbitration and negotiating to consider workers’ claims. These measures will make it possible to direct the protest nature of the situation into the course of negotiation processes in the legal field. Monitoring and prevention of labor conflicts are also important. In this regard, the Federation of Trade Unions conducts “Labor consultations” at the enterprises of the country. In order to expand the scale and enhance the effectiveness, it is necessary to hold this action in 2023 under the auspices of the Ministry of Labor, together with republican unions of trade unions,” suggested Satybaldy Dauletalin.
The Head of the FTURK also paid attention to the problem of industrial injuries at the country’s enterprises. In this regard, using the example of “leadership” in the tragic cases of ArcelorMittal Temirtau JSC, the speaker noted that the issue of state intervention is overdue.
It is obvious that government intervention is necessary with the involvement of scientific organizations to study ways to prevent gas-dynamic phenomena and to develop specific measures by employers for the early prediction of potentially dangerous situations in coal mines. We also propose to build a system of tax incentives to motivate the employer to upgrade production assets and strengthen the employer’s responsibility at the legislative level for failure to provide adequate conditions for safety and labor protection,” the Chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions of the Republic of Kazakhstan continued.
Speaking about the development of the social partnership system, Satybaldy Dauletalin stressed that despite the positive steps taken by social partners, the lingering uncertainty about the full representation of employers in the social partnership system remains an urgent problem.
“Also, in our opinion, it is long overdue to raise the status of the RTK and the General Agreement, which is increasingly becoming just a declaration of the parties’ intentions. The General Agreement should contain the obligations and responsibilities of the parties and, in particular, for ensuring social standards in the country,” the Head of the FTURK noted.
Satybaldy Dauletalin recalled that the issues of persons who lost their health while performing work duties, which have sharply intensified since 2015, after amendments to the insurance legislation, remain unresolved. At the same time, he noted that the Federation of Trade Unions supports the resumption of the activities of a special working group of the Ministry of Labor.
“At the same time, we consider it necessary to accelerate the solution of a complex of problematic issues of regressors, including: a return to lifetime insurance payments for life and health compensation (currently limited to retirement age); insurance payments by insurance companies in case of disability up to 29%; for working miners – a reduction in the retirement age,” the Chairman of the FTURK summed up.
Summarizing the work of the Board, Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Alikhan Smailov gave a number of instructions to the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Population and noted that when making decisions and improving social and labor legislation, take into account the initiatives voiced by the Federation of Trade Unions of the Republic of Kazakhstan during the board meeting.
Media Center of the Federation of Trade Unions of the Republic of Kazakhstan