Debt on Wages? Let Them Wait...

The labor conflict in the Urban Street Lighting Office of the Department of Housing and Communal Services of the Baku Executive Power between the administration and the collective threatens to turn into a strike or picket. The matter is that hundreds of workers of the department, engaged in providing street illumination of the capital, which also includes 11 district units, do not receive a salary for the fourth month. Calling to Turan Information Agency, several employees reported that delays in paying wages began in 2016. Then these delays lasted two months. Today, this period has doubled.

This fact was confirmed in the Department of Housing and Communal Services of the capital. The assistant to the head of the profile entity Saeeda Khanum (they did not mention the name) said the problem with the salary delay for the employees of this subordinated power economy will be resolved in the near future. Debts on salary arrears will be repaid.

However, as it turned out, the employees of the Office of Urban Street Lighting do not believe in these promises, which were also repeated more than once last year. First, the former head of the organization, Maharram Babayev, who was recently sent to retirement under a plausible pretext, reassured the workers that the money would come at the expense of the enterprise and there was no need to complain, otherwise they would have to say goodbye to their work. The threat worked, and "the dirty linen was not taken out." But the promises remained unfulfilled. The new chief Tayyar Abdullayev, who came to replace the former one, sort of energetically took up the normalization of the financial situation of the enterprise entrusted to him. But he still does not succeed.

As reported by the employees of the department, the matter is that due to the salaries of workers, the debts for taxes to the budget and to OJSC Azerishyg for electricity are repaid. These financial transactions are carried out with the knowledge of the head of the Department of Housing Rafael Abdullayev. Unfortunately, Rafael Muallim did not manage to talk about this conflict situation, since his phones persistently remained silent.

Today, the facts of arrears in wages in Azerbaijan are not uncommon, both in the public sector and in private business. In a private conversation with a correspondent of Turan IA, officials of the Penitentiary Service of the Ministry of Justice also lamented the delay in paying salaries. The same situation has developed in the divisions of the state concern AZAL, SOCAR, a number of commercial banks and construction companies. The delay in salary payments is from one month to six months.

Moreover, there are also delays in social payments. People cannot get targeted social assistance and other types of benefits. In April of this year, a group of residents of the Bilasuvar district blocked the Baku-Astara highway in protest. The protesters demanded writing off their debts on social payments.

Sahib Mammadov, the head of the League for the Protection of Workers" Rights, noted that the economic crisis in the country has negatively affected the pace of tax collection and transfers to the budget, which leads to a shortage of finance for the payment of salaries, benefits and compensation. In all state bodies, bonuses and premiums have been canceled for the sake of economy. In the treasury, a deficit of finance has been formed, which resulted in salary arrears, which provokes conflicts in the workplace.

"Employees are afraid to openly oppose late payment of salaries and to hold protests. They are afraid of layoffs and staff cuts. Therefore, mass protests are not observed. And in some places employers increase the load, believing that in the crisis times there is no way out for the workers, so they will work, if only they do not want to lose their jobs," Mammadov pointed out.

It was not possible to obtain data on the total amount of arrears in salaries and social benefits and a comment on measures to resolve the situation in this area in the State Service of the Labor Inspectorate and the press service of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Population. The telephone numbers of the department were silent the whole day. Apparently, the ministry staff "went underground."--0--