New Labour Law Protects Workers
Monday, 30 April, 2007
New Labour Law Protects Workers
Monday, 30 April, 2007
The labour code was passed by the Kazak parliament on April 25 and submitted to President Nursultan Nazarbaev for his final approval.
A draft of the code was first submitted to parliament in December 2004, but it has since been altered with more than a thousand amendments.
NBCentralAsia analysts say the new code contains several progressive points such as strengthening the role of trade unions in overseeing labour relations, better benefits for workers and improvements to the system for settling disputes.
The code puts a system in place to compensate for job loss and to ensure employees are paid at an hourly rate, a two-tier system for settling labour disputes, and a minimum employment contract of one year.
“The current labour legislation is [weighted] towards the employer, whereas the new code balances the rights and obligations of both sides. There are a lot of points in the new code that protect workers’ rights,” said Valentina Vaschenko, head of the Shymkent education workers’ trade union.
Trade unions have also been assigned a key role in settling disputes between employees and their bosses, making the legal process more fair and open, she added.
Mayra Amantaeva, head of the national trade union for education- and science-sector workers, agreed, saying, “The labour code reflects changes to the market, and I believe Kazakstan’s trade unions have provided a lot of the groundwork for this. I am glad the code has given trade unions a significant role to play - their importance is growing.”
Amantaeva said the changes to the law would need to be explained to the public if the new labour code is to work effectively.
But some employment protections have been dropped in the final version of the code. The upper chamber of parliament, the Senate, voted to remove an article adopted by the lower house or Majilis which prevents employers from sacking someone over retirement age unless they have broken their contract.
Raisa Brikalova, head of the labour legislation department at the South Kazakstan regional branch of the labour and welfare ministry, has called the Senators’ decision “a move against the people”.
“Retirement age has been increased, but this category of people remain unprotected, without any guarantees,” she said.
However, Vaschenko believes according privileged rights to post-retirement-age employees would discriminate against other workers.
Amantaeva agreed, saying there was no need to put people over the retirement age into a separate category, since the code protects them in other ways. “[Retirement age] can be taken into account when drawing up individual employment contracts – this is where the trade unions can play a role,” she said. “The role of trade unions is well defined in this code, which protects employees so that they cannot be fired just like that.”
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
