Deputy Vitaly Pashin proposed to rewrite Article 134 of the Labor Code, which says about “ensuring an increase in the level of real wages content” and its indexation “in connection with the rise in consumer prices for goods and services.”
Indexation guarantees for state and municipal officials are spelled out in the laws on state and municipal service, salaries for them and employees of the public sector are recalculated every year – if there is political will and funds in the federal, regional or municipal budgets, of course. Around the inflation rate. Or slightly below, or slightly above this level.
As for business, now the Labor Code vaguely promises (but does not guarantee) indexation to those working in private enterprises “in the manner prescribed by the collective agreement, agreements, local regulations.” Which means: there is a strong trade union at the enterprise that has entered into a collective agreement with the employer and has hammered into this agreement a clause on the indexation of wages – the salary will increase, the employer, for some reason, having found the resources, will carry out the indexation of the salaries of employees – will carry out, having issued it ” local normative act “… There is no collective agreement, there is no good will of the owner to find funds or the funds themselves – there will be no indexation.
It does not exist in the overwhelming majority of private enterprises in Russia.
So, Mr. Pashin believes that the Labor Code should stipulate that private business should index wages “subject to profit at the end of the financial year and the absence of signs of insolvency (bankruptcy)” – at least once a year and no later than the beginning of May. And if there is a collective agreement at the enterprise, but neither in it nor in local regulations says anything about the conditions for indexation due to price increases, salaries are recalculated taking into account the inflation rate in the region where the employee works.
“The absence of active trade unions at enterprises and organizations, the terms of individual labor contracts, the employer’s simply unwillingness to incur additional costs may be the reasons that the conditions for indexing wages in the local documents of the employer are absent,” says the explanatory note to the bill submitted to the State Duma.
Do we need stricter wording in the Labor Code, obliging employers to index the salaries of employees? And most importantly, can the emergence of such formulations solve the problem?
Deputy Chairman of the FNPR, Alexander Shershukov, in a conversation with MK, admitted that Article 134 of the Labor Code in its current form “is of a general nature, there is no mechanism for its implementation, and no doubt it is necessary to introduce additional norms that make indexation mandatory.” But “this is a big complex problem” that cannot be solved by amendments to one article, he said: for example, even if the enterprise has a strong trade union organization, it is not at all easy to achieve indexation if the owner has sufficient funds. “If the employer shrugs off and justifies himself with obscure documents, logically the trade union organization should start the procedure of a collective labor dispute, up to a strike. But the legal mechanism for holding strikes is now so bureaucratic that it is practically impracticable, ”explains Mr. Shershukov.
According to him, in any case, any changes to the Labor Code should take place only after discussion within the framework of the tripartite commission for the regulation of social and labor relations (it includes representatives of trade unions, government and employers’ associations). This bill did not go through such a procedure. And what the position of employers will be in the current situation can be predicted in advance …
The representative of the FNPR admits that over the past year, public discussions on the topic of salary indexation have become “much more”, which speaks of its relevance. “The President says that the economy has returned to the pre-pandemic level, but the pre-pandemic level was actually the level of stagnation, with growth rates around 1% per year. In addition, the majority of the population, I’m afraid, is watching the rise in prices, primarily for food, and for them the figures of economic recovery are a rather weak consolation, ”he said.
Yes, according to Rosstat, the average nominal wages are growing this year and now amount to about 59 thousand rubles a month “dirty”, but these are the average wages, calculated according to a method that, according to many experts, does not give a complete picture. And they grow unevenly for different categories of workers and in different industries.
But professor of the Financial University under the government of the Russian Federation, economist Alexander Safonov believes that it is “impossible and unnecessary” to solve the problem of income growth of employees by obliging by law all entrepreneurs to index salaries annually. “Situations are different, enterprises can find themselves in a difficult economic situation, and for a long period, and any additional burden for them will mean economic death and loss of jobs. Therefore, foreign trade unions, for example, participating in the negotiation process on indexation, first of all assess its impact on the wage fund (and in our country it is not only salary, but also insurance contributions to the Pension Fund, for example). And in the end they can agree with the employer, including that, for example, that for a certain period of crisis, salaries are reduced with a decrease in the number of working hours, “he told MK. (As mentioned above, the bill exempts enterprises in a difficult financial situation from the obligation to carry out indexation.)
If the enterprise has no income, continues Mr. Safonov, such a way to find money for indexation, like raising prices for products, is also not suitable: uncompetitive, which will lead to job cuts, ”that is, not at all what the workers would like. According to the expert, “everything is very delicate here, and such a waste solution (mandatory indexation -” MK “.) The problem associated with the increase in wages cannot be solved.”
How can you solve it? Mr. Safonov believes that one of the ways is to index the minimum wage (minimum wage). “If we increase the minimum wage, the employer always faces the problem of the redistribution of wages, if he cannot increase the volume of the wage fund at the expense of some accumulated funds. In addition, he withdraws part of the funds from the gray sector and begins to pay more to the “white” sector, which is beneficial for the employees, since the size of the future pension and the ability to get a loan from the bank depend on the “white” salaries. Yes, the growth of the minimum wage entails certain expenses for the business, it is forced to raise salaries to a certain level, but this also entails raising the average salaries at the enterprise, ”the expert is sure.
The redistribution of the wage fund after the increase in the minimum wage simultaneously can and should lead to a reduction in the costs of top management salaries, he believes – Potmow that “a reduction in the income of the middle stratum of workers can lead to the fact that you will lose key specialists, this must be treated very carefully.” … “A very disproportionate distribution of wages in favor of high-income categories of workers” is one of the acute problems of our labor market, and this disproportion is not decreasing, even growing. Why, although the minimum wage is growing? The minimum wage does not work, as it is “very low”, Mr. Safonov is sure.
Let’s remind: now the minimum wage is 12 792 rubles per month. You cannot pay for the full load below this amount in Russia. Next year it is planned to increase the minimum wage to 13,617 rubles a month, which is 825 rubles and 6.4% more. But 6.4% is below the current inflation rate in annual terms. And even if by December the rise in prices slows down and the rate of growth of the minimum wage equals the rate of inflation accumulated over the year, at least we will not get a real increase in the minimum wage.
“No matter how humanly I myself would not want salaries to be indexed, and better – higher than the rate of inflation, but in general in Russia there is a curve-oblique, but market economy, which presupposes freedom of entrepreneurial activity,” the director of the Institute told MK strategic analysis of the company “Financial and accounting consultants” Igor Nikolaev. And freedom of entrepreneurial activity, according to him, is “including how an entrepreneur can dispose of what he earns: how much he can allocate for the development of production, how much for wages, and as soon as we start something here- then tough regulation is a step towards where we are trying to get away, into a directive command-administrative economy. “
But this does not mean that there is no need to try to solve anything at all, the economist warns: just in the realities of a market economy, this should be done differently, not by introducing binding norms into laws, “especially since we have, as you know, in relation to pensioners , the requirement of annual indexation to the level of inflation cannot withstand, and we also want to force private traders by law to index salaries. ” Only “a high level of competition can force a private trader to raise wages, when he understands that if he does not index wages, a competitor will entice workers by offering them more. If you are not concerned about people raising their qualifications and getting more, you will not be able to produce a competitive product on the market and you will go bankrupt … It’s more difficult, this is a dreary and long business, but, in my opinion, this is the only question in a market economy, ”believes he. Of course, there is the problem of small towns, where there is nowhere to work and there is nowhere to go, which allows you to keep earnings at a shamefully low level, close to the minimum wage, but nevertheless …
Of course, talking about freedom of entrepreneurial activity in relation to the size of wages can only be “to a certain extent” – because the level of the minimum wage in our country is set by the state (minimum wage), explains Mr. Nikolaev.
By the way: the Constitution of the Russian Federation in its updated form does not promise any indexation of salaries to Russians, although such proposals were received when discussing amendments last year. Article 75 of the Basic Law only speaks of “respecting” the work of citizens and ensuring the “protection of their rights”. And only the minimum wage is guaranteed by the state – “not less than the subsistence minimum of the able-bodied population.”
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