The government’s post-war reconstruction plans threaten a ‘Mad Max-style dystopia’, says Ukrainian labour lawyer.
Draft plans for Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction and fresh remarks by officials suggest that the country’s government intends to retreat from the principle of social dialogue at the policy level. Outlines released by the National Council for the Recovery of Ukraine from the War, a body set up by the president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, state that the Ukrainian government plans to move to a model of ‘non-interference of the state in dialogue between trade unions and employers’ as part of its drive to join the European Union.
Speaking to openDemocracy, the Ukrainian labour lawyer George Sandul said the ‘final goal’ of the draft reconstruction plan was a ‘Mad Max-style dystopia’ where ‘everybody will negotiate on their own without any rules’.
‘These draft plans clearly state that the Ukrainian government is not interested in the principle of social dialogue at all,’ Sandul said, explaining that social dialogue was ‘at the core’ of both International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions and Ukraine’s association agreement with the EU. The Ukrainian state had a mixed record on supporting social dialogue before the Russian invasion and was now ‘trying to get rid of’ its commitments ‘even on paper’.
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