On May 3, the Parliament of Ukraine adopted in the first reading the draft law No.8313 “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine Regarding Regulation and Use of Vacations, as well as Other Issues”.
Amongst other amendments proposed to the draft law, it aims to exclude Article 252 of the Labor Code and Article 41 of the Law of Ukraine “On Trade Unions, Their Rights and Guarantees of Activity”. Under these clauses, employees who are members of the elected trade union bodies are entitled to an additional paid vacation of up to 6 calendar days in case of trade union training.
The Main Scientific and Expert Department of the parliament truly emphasized that exclusion of such norm narrows union rights as under the Law of Ukraine “On Trade Unions, Their Rights, and Guarantees of Activity,” the state undertook to promote the training of trade union personnel; together with the trade unions to ensure an increase their knowledge on the legal, economic and social aspects of employees protection.
Labor Initiatives experts believe that the draft law will have a hugely damaging effect on the union activists in case of its final adoption. In particular, for attending most of the LI pieces of training, union members usually used this right and took a special type of vacation. Deprivation of workers to leave their workplace for union education could be harmful to unions` strengthening capacity efforts in general because many elected union leaders and activists would lack the possibility to train and obtain new knowledge.
