Protection of labour rights by trade unions in separate post-Soviet countries

Abstract

Trade unions play an increasingly more critical role in protection of the employees of every state. This article aims to outline the problems with regard to the legal regulation of labour rights protection by trade unions in post-Soviet countries. The research is based on a system of various general philosophical methods (dialectical method), general scientific methods, such as methods of synthesis and analysis, induction and deduction, and special legal methods, including comparative legal method and the method of modelling. The choice of the mentioned methods was determined by the purpose of this study. The legal rules on protection of labour rights by trade unions in post-Soviet countries are set up by a number of international conventions, Constitutions of such countries (as this is a special constitutional right, being under a special protection of the state) and their national legislative acts. Some of the post-Soviet states are now members of the EU (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) and are subject to regional EU regulations. Every post-Soviet State has its own jurisprudence, legal practice and traditions of labour rights’ protection and hence has its own national peculiarities with regard to this protection, the representation of employees and the architecture of labour legislation. The analysis conducted by the authors shows that the national legislators were not fully following the international standards established by the International Labour Organization and did not fully secure the freedom of association. All the mentioned countries were recommended either to change some pieces of legislation or to supervise the existing draft of laws to make them meet the rules set in a number of international conventions. The authors have also stated that trade unions in post-Soviet countries are not always effective