The associations of trade unions and employers demand that the Ukrainian government recall a bill on the reform of obligatory state social insurance and the legalization of the wage fund from the Ukrainian parliament as the bill liquidates the existing system of obligatory social insurance.
“The federation of trade unions and other national trade union associations forward an ultimatum to the Cabinet of Ministers asking that it recall a bill which was submitted to the government without holding a social dialog and without the preliminary discussion,” Chair of the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine Hryhoriy Osovy said at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday, Sept. 30.
He said that the government’s bill would impact the social rights and guarantees of around 30 million Ukrainian citizens who at present receive services or material aid in the social insurance system.
He said that the bill proposes that the social insurance fund is liquidated and it is removed from the management and control of social insurance of employees and employers. Osovy said that the government’s bill makes the social insurance system state-managed via the creation of a non-transparent cumbersome state structure with common state management, which will distribute the funds paid by employees and employers in its sole discretion.
He also said that if the bill is approved sanatorium treatment, health improvement of employee’s children will be liquidated, and partial financing of preventive clinics will be stopped. After the adoption of the document the major part of sanatoriums where 9,500 employees work could stop operating, and over 500 children sports schools where 165,000 children go will be left without financing.
Osovy said that if the bill is passed, the annual increase of insurance payments to victims of accidents at work and professional diseases will fall by five times (earlier the payments were increase by 100 percent of the pace of growth of average wage in the country and it is proposed to increase only by 20 percent ), the size of one-time compensation to victims of accidents who lost ability to work is cut by four times (instead of present Hr 82,800 to only Hr 20,700).
