Kazakhstan sees ways to improve labor relations regulation

According to Minister Berdybek Saparbayev, the dealing with protection of legal interests of employees is ongoing together with ministries. As of today, 6.6 million employees work in the economy of the country. The country improved its position, raising from 35th to 30th place among 140 countries [World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report] by the end of 2018. The minimum salary has been increased by 1.5 times, to 42.5 thousand tenge, the average monthly salary of an employee equals 176 thousand tenge.  

“The first task is to protect labor rights, including the right for a timely and decent salary. As of the 14th March of 2019, employers owe KZT1.7bn. Today work with law enforcement bodies is going on to settle this issue”, the Minister reported.

The report went on saying that over 1000 employers did not conclude labor agreements with their employees. A start was given to the nation-wide movement “Conclude a labor agreement” in 2018, under which 40 thousand labor agreements have been already signed, with Turkestan, Kyzylorda, Zhambyl regions being on top.

The second task is about the implementation of the Head of State’s instruction to increase the salaries of those with low income.

“As of today, 184.6 thousand employers have raised the salaries of 958 thousand workers. Now we focus on continuing this work jointly with employers, Mayor’s and Governor’s Offices. It is also necessary that the salary increases proportionally to inflation”, the Minister of Labor and Social Protection of Population said.

Speaking of the next task, the Minister attached importance to ensuring safe labor conditions, underlining work to decrease occupational injuries should be activated. Such work has been already under way in many enterprises, with over 1.7 million people examined so far, 673 thousand received compensations, and employers spent an overall KZT107bn.

The comprehensive roadmap to reduce occupational injuries and workplaces with harmful labor conditions in Kazakhstan for 2019-2023 is being implemented, aiming at introducing a modern labor protection management system based on prevention, detection, evaluation and management of occupational risks at industrial enterprises, and at increasing state, internal and public control over observance of the labor law.

The Minister also outlined the reduction in the number of labor inspectors, the issue regarding their dismissal and quality, underlining that this issue remains one of the main areas, and that it is essential to avoid social gaps.

Next who spoke was Minister of Industry and Infrastructural Development Roman Sklyar, who reaffirmed that the ensuring of safe labor conditions is one of the major tasks of the Ministry, including the elimination of harm to employees’ health, and the reduction in occupational injuries.

“To this end, the Ministry monitors the supervised industrial sectors, state control runs in over 9 thousand industrial enterprises, that include approximately 220 dangerous industrial facilities”, Roman Sklyar said.

The Ministry held 1322 inspections around the high-level risk facilities on an ad hoc basis in the previous year, and 940 unplanned inspections. As a result of these inspections, 39 thousand violations were revealed, 827 facilities were suspended and 3 enterprises, 2 thousand fines of over KZT147mln were imposed. The operation of some facilities was stopped mostly due to inconsistencies with the technological norms, the lack of safety.

In order to reduce accidents and occupational injuries, the Ministry yearly develops technical re-equipment plans to ensure safe operation of technical devices at dangerous industrial facilities. In addition, a draft law on industrial safety has been designed to put forward to the Parliament in this year.

“In general, all the measures aim at ensuring industrial security at dangerous industrial facilities”, the Minister concluded.

Chairman of the Federation of Labour Unions of Kazakhstan Bakytzhan Abdraim addressed the issue of the necessity to activate the work of the regions’ tripartite commissions on social partnership and review the issues regarding collective agreements’ conclusion and their implementation in the regions on a regular basis. 

“According to the Labor Code, a collective agreement is the main instrument ensuring protection of employees’ interests and observance of social justice principles”, he said.

He expressed concern about low salaries paid to workers of the budget sphere, agriculture and other areas, underlining the problematic issues of the social and labor sphere, including a decent salary.

“To implement the Head of State’s instructions, two decisions to increase the salaries have been made over the past year and a half, a 1.5-time increase in the minimum salary since 2019, and the planned increase in the salaries of workers in the budget sphere since this July”, he said.

Nevertheless, workers involved in agriculture, forestry and other areas have low salaries. 

The Chairman called on heads of enterprises, business communities, local executive bodies to take necessary measures to gradually increase the salaries of the category of people with low income.

Having stressed the necessity to create an effective system for regulating social and labor relations, Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Askar Mamin instructed the Governors to keep control over the issue of preventing the emergence of social tension in labor collectives. He stressed that they had to prevent summary dismissal.

Improvement of the social well-being of workers is the main policy direction of the Head of State. The Government is working to prevent social conflicts. A. Mamin exampled some positive solutions to labor and social issues of workers in enterprises. Many companies supported the initiative of the Head of State to increase wages for low-paid workers. In this regard, the Prime Minister instructed to actively replicate the accumulated positive experience in all regions of the country.

The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Population was entrusted with studying the proposals given by the Federation of Labour Unions and the Atameken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs sounded at the Government meeting and finding a solution.

“The format of work of the tripartite commissions at all levels should be reviewed, especially in the regions. It’s necessary to activate this site. Formalism in work is unacceptable”, A. Mamin said.

In addition, the Prime Minister noted the importance of the issue of occupational safety. In this regard, the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Population, with the participation of central government bodies and trade unions, was instructed to develop a comprehensive roadmap for occupational safety and health for a five-year period within a month.

It should be noted that the Head of State during his speech at the XVIII Congress of the Nur Otan Party noted that the main priority is to ensure a decent standard of living for the citizens and the development of Kazakhstan as a socially-oriented state.

Adlet Seilkhanov

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