New General Agreement entered into force

On March 31, the General Agreement was signed between the All-Russian associations of Trade Unions, the All-Russian associations of employers and the Government of the Russian Federation for 2021-2023.

The document was signed by the Chairman of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR) Mikhail Shmakov, the President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) Alexander Shokhin and Minister of Labor and Social Protection of the Russian Federation Anton Kotyakov,

Russian President Vladimir Putin took part in the signing ceremony of the General Agreement by videoconference. In his opening remarks, he emphasized that ‘this is a truly socially significant document. It directly affects the interests of more than 70 million citizens of the country who work in various sectors of the economy and social sphere, and in order to fully protect and guarantee the labour rights of people, we must continue to act as real partners.’

The President of Russia also expressed his opinion on the most pressing problems of socio-economic development, in particular, set the task by the end of this year to restore the labour market in the country to the indicators of 2019, to show special concern for the health of citizens.

‘Respect for the people of work, social partnership, economic solidarity are the most important principles that we have laid down in the updated Constitution. And it is necessary that these provisions of the Constitution work at the level of each district, region, industry, city, in specific labour collectives and enterprises. For this, the government, trade unions, employers must act as harmoniously as possible, like real partners,’ concluded his speech Vladimir Putin.

FNPR Chairman Mikhail Shmakov highlighted a number of fundamental points contained in the General Agreement: priority funding for the development and support of human capital, social sectors, poverty reduction and a limiting in the tax burden on the poor. He noted that during the preparation of the Agreement, three key events took place that influenced both the spirit and the text of the agreement. First of all, this is the introduction of social amendments into the text of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, including on the special role of social partnership in the regulation of social and labour relations. Another milestone was the adoption of the ILO Centenary Declaration on the Future of Work. In addition, the text of the General Agreement was influenced by the need to take into account the consequences of the pandemic of the new coronavirus infection in the formation of measures to protect workers and the labour market.

Alexander Shokhin, the RSPP President noted that measures to stimulate employers are needed to restore the labor market, including the development of flexible forms of employment, flexible labor legislation. At the same time, Alexander Shokhin cited as an example the expansion of the scope of application of fixed-term collective agreements. He also drew attention to the issue of transferring personnel documents to electronic form, in which Russian business is extremely interested. In this regard, it is appropriate to recall that every time when discussing this issue, the trade union side expressed its fears about the mass of mistakes that are already taking place with the introduction of electronic work books, and insisted in this regard on the need to provide the employee with the possibility of maintaining the paper format of the work books, since the problems of technical security of electronic document management have not yet been completely resolved and both variants of leakage of staff databases and their complete loss are possible.

REFERENCE:

The signed Agreement is the 14th. It establishes at the federal level the principles of regulation of social, labour and related economic relations between Trade Unions, employers and the executive branch.

The new document, like the General Agreement for 2018-2020, consists of seven sections: ‘Economic Policy’, ‘Wages, Incomes and Living Standards of the Population’, ‘Development of the Labor Market and Promotion of Employment of the Population’, ‘Social Insurance, Social Protection , development of social sectors’, ‘Conditions and labour protection, industrial and environmental safety’, ‘Socio-economic problems of the development of Russian regions, including the regions of the Far North and equivalent areas’, ‘Development of social partnership and coordination of actions of the parties to the agreement’.

The ROGWU, as one of the members of the trade union side of the Russian Trilateral Commission for the Regulation of Social and Labour Relations, during 2020 most actively negotiated with social partners on the content of Section VI of the General Agreement, dedicated to the socio-economic development of Russian regions, including regions The Far North and equivalent areas. In 2021-2023, the ROGWU will contribute to the implementation of the obligations included in this section of the General Agreement.