In July, Tretiakova expanded on these plans during a meeting of the parliamentary committee on social policy.
“The employer can purchase its coverage, its responsibility to the employee, either from the state or from the private sector. But the private sector will give a fair price for such insurance,” Tretiakova said.
Volodymyr Saenko, deputy head of the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine, described these efforts as “nothing more than lobbying the interests of private insurance companies.”
Response of trade unions
The merger plan comes as the Ukrainian government is preparing to move away from state provision and regulation in socio-economic policy.
This summer, the country’s ruling party forced through an agenda of radical labour deregulation – without consulting trade unions or referring to legal advice provided by the European Union and the International Labor Organization (IL0).
Those new laws, governing labour protections at small and medium enterprises, are deemed to violate EU norms and ILO conventions. Supporters argue that they are necessary to improve the business climate and reduce the bureaucratic burdens associated with hiring and firing.
In August, social policy chief Tretiakova claimed that the ILO, a UN agency, was a barrier to Ukrainians striking individual employment agreements and protecting their employment rights through more flexible means.
“We have to re-examine the obligations of the state, and they have to match the capacity of the state at this specific historical moment,” Tretiakova told openDemocracy.
The government and ruling party’s reforms have long set them on a collision course with Ukraine’s trade unions, which cannot use traditional methods of action, such as mass protests and strikes, during wartime.
Mykhailo Volynets MP, head of the Confederation of Free Trade Unions, and Yulia Tymoshenko, leader of the opposition Batkivshchyna party, told openDemocracy they had recently met with representatives of the ILO and global trade unions. Batkivshchyna opposed the social insurance-pension fund merger.
“We informed them about violations of ILO conventions, the Association Agreement with the EU, EU directives when the Ukrainian parliament adopted a number of bills that infringe on labour and trade union rights,” Volynets said.
“Everyone is concerned that the adoption of such laws could negatively affect the image of Ukraine and slow down its adoption into the EU,” he added.
Halyna Tretiakova MP, who backs the merger, recently told parliament that “EU directives do not dictate how any country should organise its system of social insurance.”
“I don’t think we should allow external management in our country,” Tretiakova said.
The merger of the two funds is now set to be signed into law by President Zelenskyi. If it goes ahead, it will come into effect in January 2023.
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