Buhvostau: Kozik’s initiative is absurd but it can make us go underground

Leanid Kozik, the head of the Belarusian Federation of Trade Unions, is going to create a unified trade union organization.
He claims that the task of including members of all alternative trade unions into the BFTU has been set for the next year. He thinks that “90% of members of such federations got there because of the confusion of the 1990s”, -informs BelTA.

That’s how the head of an independent trade union movement Alyaksadnr Buhvostau commented on Kozik’s announcement in his interview with ERB:

“It is absurd. Kozik has been developing the idea of uniting everyone under the aegis of the Federation for a long time. But it’s ridiculous. The Federation is not the same as trade unions…”

However, Buhvostau admits that the authorities are capable of liquidating an independent movement:

“They can take away our registration. They can persecute us at enterprises. If the registration is liquidated independent trade unions will go underground. But independent trade unions should remain and they will”.