Chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions of Kazakhstan Satybaldy Dauletalin held a meeting with representatives of the National Confederation of Employers “Paryz” and representatives of the Institute BWMV (Federation of Employers of the Federal State of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern).
The participants of the meeting discussed the current state of social dialog in Kazakhstan, perspective directions of further joint work and other topical issues of social and labor sphere of Kazakhstan.
Welcoming the social partners and foreign colleagues Chairman of the FTURK Satybaldy Dauletalin familiarized them with the activities, structure, goals and priorities of the Federation of Trade Unions of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
“There are 3 republican trade union associations in Kazakhstan. The Federation of Trade Unions is the most massive public organization in the country, whose members are more than 1.7 million workers, united in 23 sectoral, 17 territorial associations and more than 16 thousand primary trade union organizations. The work of the Federation is carried out within the framework of the Strategy of Activity for 2020-2025. Our goals are always unambiguous – to promote issues of social justice, ensuring safe working conditions for all workers, fair distribution of income, as well as the implementation of international standards in national legislation, including the promotion of ILO conventions”, – said Satybaldy Dauletalin.
According to him, today the Federation of Trade Unions actively cooperates with the International Labor Organization, the International Trade Union Confederation and with foreign national trade union centers.
“In the framework of the 112th session of the International Labor Conference in Geneva between the social partners of the country and the International Labor Organization signed a Roadmap to promote decent work in Kazakhstan. The Roadmap was adopted on the initiative of all parties of social partnership with the technical support of the International Labor Organization and reflects joint initiatives on topical areas of the labor sphere. Currently we are actively working on the development of a country program of decent work”, – said the Chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions of Kazakhstan.
In turn, Director of the Institute BWMV Susan Bach, speaking about the purpose of the visit of the German delegation to Kazakhstan, reported on cooperation with the National Confederation of Employers “Paryz” in the implementation of a collaborative project.
According to her, employers’ organizations of Kazakhstan and Germany have been actively cooperating for 3 years in the framework of a collaborative project funded by the federal government.
External auditor of the project Stefan Bayer offered to exchange views on social dialogue in Kazakhstan, as well as asked about the position of the Federation of Trade Unions on priority areas of social partnership.
Answering the questions of foreign experts, Chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions of the Republic of Kazakhstan Satybaldy Dauletalin specified that the parties of social partnership at the central level operate on the basis of the General Agreement for 2024-2026, signed in March this year. At the level of industries and regions, social partnership is regulated by sectoral and regional agreements, as well as in Kazakhstan more than 150 thousand collective agreements at the local level.
As for the interaction with employers, Satybaldy Dauletalin noted certain progress, emphasizing that cooperation between the structure of employers and trade unions is becoming systematic and constructive.
“Dialogue between trade unions, employers and the state is important for ensuring stability in the labor market and growth of workers’ welfare. The absence of an employers’ association in the country has been one of the pressing problems in the development of social partnership. Trade unions have repeatedly raised before the government the problem of the lack of republican representation of employers, which does not allow building a system of effective tripartite relations. Given the importance of tripartite participation, the Federation of Trade Unions provided possible consulting support to the National Confederation of Employers “Paryz”. We hope that now all parties of social partnership will work fully”, – emphasized Satybaldy Dauletalin.
At the same time, the Chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions elaborated on the key areas of cooperation in light of the implementation of the New Social Contract.
“For more than 30 years of Kazakhstan’s independence, a certain social contract was formed, which consisted in the fact that the employee agreed to certain violations of their rights by the employer in exchange for wages and workplace. New times have come, which dictate new requirements. Today the international community at the global level is adopting the New Social Contract”, – emphasized the Head of the FTURK.
The Chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions reported on some measures to ensure social justice, adopted in the country on the initiative of trade unions.
“In 2022, we managed to influence the adoption of important decisions on the part of the state – Kazakhstan adopted a program to increase the income of the population, increased the minimum wage, developed a methodology for determining the minimum wage, adopted the Concept of safe work until 2030, providing for the transition from compensation to risk-oriented model of occupational safety and health,” – said the Chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions of Kazakhstan.
He also emphasized that within the framework of social partnership, the Federation of Trade Unions continues to promote initiatives to fix the issues of wage indexation at the legislative level, the development of a fair policy in relation to transnational companies, as well as the creation of mechanisms to influence employees on the decisions made by the employer in terms of wages.
In this case, he noted that the trade unions of Kazakhstan are interested in the best practices of trade unions in Germany on the participation of employee representatives in the management of the enterprise, as well as on issues of collective bargaining regulation of labor relations. He suggested that the project to organize an exchange of experience of trade unions and employers of Kazakhstan with the parties of social partnership in Germany.
Among the issues that need to be addressed, Satybaldy Dauletalin also voiced the need to strengthen the position of employers in the prevention of labor conflicts.
He suggested organizing joint events to train representatives of workers and employers in conflict prevention and collective bargaining.
Experts from Germany welcomed the initiatives of the Federation of Trade Unions to organize exchange of experience, emphasizing the importance of further strengthening of social partnership in Kazakhstan.
Media Center of the Federation of Trade Unions of Kazakhstan