Following an international solidarity campaign, Volodymyr Demyan has been reinstated by Metro Cash & Carry, and his union, "Defence of Labour", is resuming negotiations for a collective agreement.
Statement of the Central Committee of Kyiv Local Trade-Union "Defense of Labor".
Dear Comrades, dear collegues in working class and trade-union struggle all over the world, representatives of progressive mass-media and activists of social initiatives, all people, who had been involved in the campaign of international solidarity with illegally fired worker Volodymyr Demyan, the leader of the trade-union "Defense of Labor" in the supermarket "Metro Cash & Carry-Ukraine".
Signing of the protocol of negotiations between management of "Metro Group" and global trade-union network UNI, according to which "Metro Cash & Carry-Ukraine" reinstates in office Volodymyr Demyan became the ending of an extremely significant episode in fighting for observance of legal norms of labour legislation on the territory of ex-USSR countries. Within the next few days activity of our independent trade-union will be restored on the enterprise "Metro Cash & Carry-Ukraine" and we are going to resume the negotiations in order to sign a collective contract.
We should thoroughly analyse any, even local success of international workers; solidarity campaign. However, even now it is clear that only integration of independent trade-unions of ex-USSR countries into global trade-union networks (for instance, following example of UNI network) will allow them to feel in the full extent outcomes of international solidarity actions.
We are deeply grateful to all activists of left-wing and youth movement, anti-authoritarian initiatives and other social movements of Kyiv who took part in our token picket on December 30, 2007 and gave valuable information support to campaign for defence of trade-union rights.
We send our greetings and many thanks to our German comrades from key fraternal trade-unions who vigorously supported struggle of Kyiv workers. We thank comrades from Russian trade-unions and social movements: the Institute Collective Action;, the Labour Confederation of Russia, the Institute of globalization and social movements, MP Ilya Ponomarev, the Socialist Movement Vpered; who gave serious information support to our campaign. We also appreciate willingness of our colleagues for solidarity actions in Moscow.
We thank British trade-union activists, especially Chris Ford and Alliance for Workers Liberty who gave us significant information support in Great Britain. We sincerely appreciate comrades from ATTAC-Hungary for their willingness for solidarity actions in Budapest. We send our fraternal greetings and thanks to Polish trade-unions OPZZ and comrades from Nowa Lewica for their willingness for solidarity actions in Warsaw. We are sincerely grateful to European MPs from GUE/NGL group for information support and solidarity with Kyiv independent trade-union "Defense of Labour". We also thank all unnamed social and trade-union activists from different countries who supported us in difficult times of our just struggle for trade-union rights.
Oleg VERNYK, Chairman of the Central Committee of Kyiv Local Trade-Union "Defence of Labour"
