11.05.2005 Employment rights protection

In my opinion protection of the youth employment rights is nowadays one of the most topical problems, if not actually the most topical one. Indeed, the first thing a University graduate faces is the clash between his expectations and reality. It is not just the matter of revaluating one’s abilities and skills, but also of the fact that the state is uninterested in the graduate’s further career and is reluctant, therefore, to protect him socially. The attempts are made, of course, to change the situation. In Karelia, for instance, the young school teacher is guaranteed an extraordinary payout of 6 thousand rubles But such a “premium” doesn’t even look like a half measure, but rather like a miserable crumb for the service done on demand of the employer. If such job is to be taken, it would be forcedly or evidently altruistically, for other problems, mainly, those of everyday life (particularly, how to live on salary several times below the cost of living, how to get a place for living) youth must solve on their own. Unfortunately, no systematic changes are to be expected in this field.
Another standing problem is the graduate’s low proficiency, when the knowledge the latter has does not satisfy the employer. Besides, there is a demand for specializations not taught in the University or for inter-disciplinary ones. The employer’s wish to save on employees makes him seek specialists trained for several professions. The graduate has an impact to acquire the second higher education and sometimes the third one, which is very difficult. Unfortunately, the system of education has become so commercialized that the second free higher education is almost impossible. By the way, in Poland there are no such limits. It is sad to think that Russian government is not interested in the citizens’ education and success, unlike Polish. Professional courses are also not available to everybody.
One problem more to be pointed at is employment through protection. No doubt, talents must be favored. But if those favored were talented! Excluding the principle of competition and the opportunity to choose if not the best, at least good, proficient and honest young people, the employer, himself being mediocre, brings forth the young growth of mediocre administrators who become a new stronghold of stagnation and formalism. This pertains to all spheres of occupation, not administration only. But mainly it mars the state institutions, where thousands if not millions of corrupted persons thrive, incapable of any creativity and progress, besides the accent on the bureaucracy stairway.
The Russian peculiarity of the “St-Pete’s principle”, thought it is a worldwide tendency, is the fact that good specialists leave their working places, where they show high efficiency and where they are really needed, for some other work because of more favorable conditions offered there – favorable in all aspects, but, in most cases, materially.
What concerns youth employment rights protection, any person can turn to the free law support service functioning under our organization in Petrozavodsk. During the five year lifetime of the service it carried a good deal of work, instructing people on the matters of business, responsibility of the employee to the employer, sick leave paying, dismissal, work-book, working record, various employment issues, working contract, dismissal payment, “Northern” bonuses etc.
Here is a characteristic appeal on one of the issues. In the order of employment there was only one record stating that the paying is done according to the list of staff members, with which list the employee has not been made familiar. As a result, instead of the promised six thousand rubles the employee received only three and a half thousand. Besides the psychological strike of receiving less money than it had been promised, the following month payment was only one thousand four hundred rubles! Was it the staff member list or the employment system that was cheating? The ex-employee could not defend his interests in court for there was no documentary evidence save a verbal promise by his ex-employer.
Then the claimant changed his demands, proposing to consider three thousand five hundred rubles the basic salary and asked the court to recover the left two thousand from the defendant. The latter answered with a premium order according to which this sum was a premium and therefore, he owes nothing to the claimant. The claimant’s statement that such documents could have been created at any time, that the register of the inside documentation, the number and date of the order were not presented has not been taken into consideration by the court.
It is evident that legal person has violated the employment law: the amount of salary has not been mentioned in the employment order, the employee has not been made familiar with the premium order, staff member list. He was given an accounting order instead of the accounting list. The employee has nor been made familiar with the constituent parts of his salary and all deductions and allocations. The appeal was left unchanged by the court. Because of the complicated procedure of appeal to the court of reviewing authority and a small claim amount the claimant decided to quit further suing.
Maxim Efimov