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The Grigor Gradev Scholarship: Call for Applications - 2019
In memory of Grigor Gradev and to continue his work, the ETUC and the ITUC have set up a scholarship to promote the thinking behind promoting workers’ rights and dignity in a Europe in circumstances of deep transformation and dire economic conditions. Grigor Gradev invested a lot in building the capacities of European unions, particularly in those countries that transitioned from a planned to a market economy; in promoting workers’ interests in challenging reform processes; and in encouraging and helping unions from different parts of Europe to cooperate and work together. Grigor Gradev did this by engaging in the political work, but also by contributing substantially to the intellectual thinking behind that work.
Provocations against the leaders of the independant trade unions of Kazakhstan continue
On January 6, 2019, Kuspan Kosshygulov (delegate to the 4th World Congress of the ITUC) was taken off train and detained by the police along with his eight-year-old daughter.
Trade unions ramp up opposition to Hungary’s ‘slave law’
Tens of thousands have taken to the streets in opposition to a new law that imposes drastic conditions on working people in Hungary. The contentious law increases the limit on overtime to 400 hours a year and breaches the European Union Working Time Directive.
Unjust verdict against union leaders in Belarus upheld, elected union leaders forced to step down
IndustriALL Global Union, International Confederation of Trade Unions (ITUC), IndustriAll European Trade Union and European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) sent letters to Guy Ryder, Director-General of International Labour Organization (ILO) and to Federica Mogherini High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy to give a further update on the situation in Belarus and particularly about ongoing persecutions of independent trade union leaders of the Belarusian Radio and Electronics Industry Workers’ Union (REP), Gennady Fedynich and Ihar Komlik.
4-th ITUC Congress adopted resolution on Labour Law Reforms in Hungary
4th ITUC World Congress that took place in 2-7 December in Copenhagen adopted an emergency resolution on Labour law reforms in Hungary. The text of the resolution is below. ITUC, ETUC and PERC sent letters of support and solidarity to Hungarian unions.
News from Affiliates
The Situation of Workers and the Trade Union Movement in Georgia
After restoration of the independence the most part of the population of Georgia has lived in the extreme poverty. According to the official statistics for 2017 the share of those below the line of extreme poverty made 21.9% of the total population, and the relative ratio was 22.3%. About 41% of the population (1 542 545) consider themselves as the poor and hope to get the social allowance, which is a miserable in amount – varies between 40 and 60 Georgian lari per month.
Ukraine: Four employees of the coal-mining enterprise still on hunger strike
In the Donetsk region, three female employees of the coal mine ‘Kurakhivska’ of the state-owned coal-mining enterprise "Selydivvugillya" continued their hunger strike against wage arrears. Yesterday morning (08 January) the employee of the coal chemistry laboratory №3 of mine "Kurakhivska " joined this protest action.
КТR: dismissal of a unionist in Russia rendered illegal by EHCR
November 20, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) announced the decision on the complaint of Anatoly Ognevenko, a member of the Russian trade union of locomotive railway brigades (RPLBZh), who was dismissed for participating in the strike. The resonant strike on the Moscow Railway took place on April 28, 2008 after the failure of wage negotiations. In its decision, the ECHR found a violation of Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides for the right to freedom of assembly and association. The interests of Anatoly Ognevenko were represented by lawyers of the Center for Social and Labor Rights.
Russia: Important decision by the European Court of Human Rights
Yesterday, 20th of November, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) announced the decision on the complaint of Anatoly Ognevenko, a member of the Russian trade union of locomotive railway brigades (RPLBZh), who was dismissed for participating in the strike.
Fourth Conference on Freedom of Association and the rights of trade unions organized in Moscow
On 26-27 of March in Moscow was organized the fourth conference "Freedom of Association and the rights of trade unions in the Russian Federation: the state and prospects." The conference was organized by the International Labor Organization (ILO), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the Russian Labor Confederation (KTR), and the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR).
