How pro-Government unions help employers manipulate workers

What goes on in the higher education system of Belarus.

This is a continuation of a mini-cycle. You will find the beginning here and here.

Alesya holds a Doctorate degree in Medicine; for a long time, she worked as the Head of Laboratory at one of the medical universities. After 2020, she was removed from that position by decision of the university administration, and the local KGB curator summoned her “for talk” several times. Among other things, he asked her about her membership in an independent union.

Alesya’s husband is a political prisoner. In the summer of 2024, they refused to renew her employment contract despite the fact that she was the only bread-earner in the family who had an underage child and a sick mother to support. She was offered a job under a fixed-term contract as a self-employed person but even that contract was terminated at the end of 2024. And Alesya ended up without a job.

"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment… It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time… You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized". George Orwell. «1984»

Like Alesya, many relatives of political prisoners face dismissals, in violation of the Labour Code, when a job is taken away from the only provider for an underage child in their families.

While doing it, they often mislead or manipulate the person slated for a dismissal. For instance, they do not renew the employment contract at the instigation of the Vice-Rector for Security and, as a way out of the dire circumstances such employees find themselves in, they offer them an chance to continue doing what they have been doing but under a civil law contract, depriving them of all social security protections provided by the Labour Code for employees and putting them in a situation of even greater dependency.

Alternatively, they can offer them a part-time employment scheme, promising to go back to full employment in the near future which never comes because the employee would fail the university’s security system check.

Those who are dismissed on the grounds of “disloyalty” or “unreliability” actually face an employment ban; they would not be hired even by schools as ordinary teachers. This was confirmed by school leaders themselves during informal interviews.

Today, Belarusian higher education institutions have a newly established “personnel filtering” system that includes elements of pressure and ideological check-ups (for instance, before the final decision to dismiss an employee is taken, he or she is offered to join the pro-Government “White Rus” party). They have also introduced annual questionnaires where employees have to disclose what trade union organization they are affiliated to or state a reason why they are not.

For several years now, the State operates a discriminatory system of branding the “disloyal elements” whereby the prerequisite for landing a job in the public sector is a mandatory reference from your previous employer, the main part of which being the job seeker’s attitude to the state system and the authorities.

Since 2024, similar references are also required for students aspiring to enter a higher education institution.

Another problem in the sector is the low level of education personnel’s awareness of their labour rights, benefits, and opportunities. The pro-Government Education and Research Workers’ Union does not keep its members properly informed.

In these circumstances, collective bargaining becomes a purely decorative exercise and is, in fact, nothing but striking a deal between a university’s administration and union functionaries with perks and benefits provided to the latter in exchange for their loyalty.

The initial draft of a CBA to be endorsed by the workforce and signed may not look too bad to start with. But later on, it is arbitrarily modified – practically always to make it weaker – by the union’s top leaders since they can sign any additional agreements with the employer at their own discretion. Thus, the CBA becomes a tool for the administration to manipulate workers through a union organization the managers fully control.

A painful issue for both the faculty and the students is the lack of academic freedoms and real (not decorative!) autonomy structures: in fact, there are no opportunities for them to voice their opinions and have a say in the way their educational institution operates.

Today, there is a strict hierarchic system in place governing access to the university decision-makers. You can only see the Rector, if you first get an authorization from the Head of your Chair and then the Dean of your Department.

The second painful issue is international cooperation and the participation of students and faculty members in academic exchanges and internships without which the development of the academic community is impossible. Today, such opportunities for Belarusians are largely limited to Russia and China, while engagement with “unfriendly states”, in all probability, will now lead to the loss of job.

Participation in any events (conferences, seminars, discussions) without a prior authorization from the management is forbidden by the Ministry of Education regulations. Lately, there has been a growing number of refusals to authorize visits even to “friendly nations” doing joint research activities with Belarus and prepared to cover all costs of such visits. Historically, this has never been a challenge.

The concluding part of the mini-cycle to be read on our web-site on Tuesday, February 25.

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