belarus executive summary - US Department of State

BELARUS 54
The minimum age for employment is 16; however, a child as young as age 14 may
conclude a labor contract with the written consent of one parent or a legal
guardian. The Prosecutor General’s Office reportedly enforced the law effectively.
Minors under age 18 were allowed to work in nonhazardous jobs but were not
allowed to work overtime, on weekends, or on government holidays. Work was
not to be harmful to the minors’ health or hinder their education.
d. Acceptable Conditions of Work
As of December 1, the national minimum monthly wage was 925,520 rubles
($112). As of December 31, the average monthly wage was 2,877,658 rubles
($348). As of November 1, the government set the poverty line at 574,790 rubles
($69) a month per capita. The first deputy minister of labor and social security
reported on December 28 that 59 organizations paid their workers wages below the
established national minimum monthly compensation.
The law establishes a standard workweek of 40 hours and provides for at least one
24-hour rest period per week. Because of the country’s difficult economic
situation, many workers worked considerably less than 40 hours per week, and
factories often required workers to take unpaid furloughs due to lack of demand for
the factories’ products. In May amid deepening financial crisis and lack of foreign
currency proceeds, the head of the National Statistics Committee stated that
approximately 600,000 workers in industries were on furloughs due to their
companies’ failure to import raw materials. Given higher wages in Russia, labor
migration to Russia, where Belarusians have the legal right to work, increased
noticeably. The law provides for mandatory overtime and holiday pay and restricts
overtime to four hours every two days, with a maximum of 120 hours of overtime
each year.
The law establishes minimum conditions for workplace safety and worker health;
however, employers often ignored these standards. Workers at many heavy
machinery plants did not wear minimal safety gear. There is a state labor
inspectorate, but it lacked authority to enforce employer compliance and often
ignored violations.
As of November 1, the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection reported 173
workplace fatalities, down from 202 in the same period in 2010. The ministry
reported that the majority of workplace accidents were registered in the
construction industry and were caused by carelessness, poor conditions,
malfunctioning equipment, and poor training and instruction. The law does not
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011
United States Department of State • Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor