The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine will initiate approval and further implementation of a number of decisions aimed at protecting the rights of wage workers in terms of  employment rights compliance and further social protection of workers upon reaching retirement age. Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman announced this during a special meeting with the leadership of the Ministry of Social Policy, the Ministry of Finance, the State Labour Service, the State Fiscal Service, the State Architectural and Construction Inspection, the Association of Ukrainian Cities and other authorities.

The Head of Government stressed that the target of this meeting is to tackle  numerous cases of violations of workers' rights and inability to check compliance with the law when inspectors simply do not allow to enter enterprises. So, the meeting participants outlined  construction, trade, security services,  hotel and restaurant businesses as the most problematic sectors. The largest number of illegal and undocumented workers is observed in the said sectors.  Kharkiv, Kyiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Odesa regions are the leaders in this statistics.

"We have a great challenge – protection of the rights of employees. If this is not done today, after a certain period of time these people will receive a minimum pension. And worse, if an injury happens in the workplace, thus the person will not receive compensation. It is necessary here to mobilize work and ensure that employers should be not only respect and pay decent wages to their workers, but also officially register them", the Prime Minister stressed.

 Volodymyr Groysman placed an emphais on the fact that the law compliance encompasses not only the protection of the employee, but also the filling of budgets of different levels and the Pension Fund, the governmental grant of which equals the allocations spending on servicing the public debt. "We are fighting today for each kopeck - both at customs and other spheres. We will also eradicate shady employment", Volodymyr Groysman added.

He proposed to shortly take decision on joint, interagency audit of enterprises,  work out the algorithm of such inspections and give time to employers to comply with all legislative norms. "I am not a supporter of penalties – it should be explained to people. But your employees should be officially registered. We give a month, and after please no offences. We will find a common ground. And now I call on recruiters - please respect your workers. Then there will be no questions", the Head of the Government underscored.

Background

According to the data provided by the State Labour Service, today the number of working population in Ukraine exceeds 16 million people. The number of unemployed citizens under methodological descriptions of the International Labor Organization - about 1.7 million. Nearly 300 thousand people registered as unemployed at the State Labour Service.