At the beginning of the meeting, the representatives of Italian Trade Union Confederation General Union of Labour (UGL) outlined their constructive attitude towards Russia, and also reminded that they continue to take an active part in the social and political projects initiated by Russian officials.
The Committee Chairman, Iaroslav
Nilov
Yaroslav Evgenievich
, focused on specific aspects of the labor legislation of the Russian
Federation: “Any improvement, any changes to the Labor Code must pass the established discussion procedure with social partners — representatives of trade unions, employers and the government. In addition, not so long ago
amendments were made to the legislation regularized changes of the retirement
age in Russia. Against this background, the Committee pays special attention to the issues of combating off-the-book employment, problems of delay or non-payment of wages, as well as other relevant topics that, one way or another, relate to the violation of citizens’ labor rights. In particular, if
an employee receives only part of so-called officially declared salary, and the rest of wage is paid unofficially, the relevant extrabudgetary funds receive
less of the contributions provided for by the current system, thus forming a deficit.”
Italian colleagues confirmed that this problem is also actual for Italy — millions of workers, mostly from the African continent, also prefer to avoid any contributions to the state budget and it leads to similar budget implications. In addition, the negative impact of the anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the EU on the Italian economy is of particular relevance: people who were previously parts of Russian business projects have either lost their jobs or found themselves in a difficult debt situation. The trade unions are trying to influence the government's position on this issue, so that they no longer be the lead by the European Union authorities and have great discretion in eliminating sanctions barriers.
Iaroslav Nilov, in turn, noted that in Russia the approach to addressing the problem of illegal migration has recently become quite stringent: “Employers who use illegal labor resources are threatened with being held serious responsible, even criminal responsibility. The so-called “infinite apartments” were banned, that previously allowed illegal migrants to register in dozens and hundreds of tiny rooms. This has greatly reduced the rate of devaluation of labour caused by the influx of illegal migrants.” Speaking about the impact of sanctions on the Russian economy, the head of the Committee, in addition to the negative side, pointed to the obvious advantages – increasing import substitution, new domestic enterprises appear, including foreign investors: “Sanctions have given impetus to the development of our agriculture, food industry. But in general, of course, the imposed restriction measures seriously hamper those long -term economic ties between our countries that could provide additional financial investments to the budget and job opportunities for people in a different geopolitical situation. ”
First Deputy Chairman of the Committee Mikhail Tarasenko
Mikhail Vasilievich
recalled that before he started to conduct legislative
activities in the State Duma, he had been running the Russian Trade Union of Mining and Metallurgy Industry for a long time:
“Our Trade Union was part of the International Metalworkers' Federation, which was headed,
by the way, by the person from Italy. And our Russian Trilateral Commission in its functionality is in fact similar to the International Labor Organization.
And no draft law related to the social sphere is currently being considered in the State Duma without taking into account the opinion of the Trilateral
Commission.”
Olga Pavlova
Olga Ivanovna
, member of the Committee, reported on the intensification of work in the field of preparation
of young specialists and citizens of pre-retirement age at with international
standards: “We help young people to choose the right profession and avoid the most common mistakes in the future. And a large-scale program of retraining and skills development for people of pre-retirement age has been developed and is
being implemented on the platform of cooperation between WorldSkills and the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection and it allows them to easily adapt to new conditions in the changing labor market.”
At the conclusion of the meeting, the parties agreed to continue the dialogue within the specified agenda, as well as to exchange information to expand interaction options. Representatives of the General Union of Labour invited members of the Committee to the upcoming Trade Union Conference in Rome to establish contacts, including at the inter-parliamentary level.
