Road building company found in breach of labour law

Serious violations of fundamental rights have been observed at the construction site of the motorway ‘Lyulin’ close to Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia, for which the Turkish company, Mapa Cengiz, won the call for open tender in 2007. After more than a year, the workers decided to organise themselves and protest against the violations, involving the regional and national structures of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria and the General Labour Inspectorate.

The Turkish construction company Mapa Cengiz, which is involved in the construction of the ‘Lyulin’ motorway close to Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia and the town of Pernik in western Bulgaria, has worked for about a year and a half without observing the country’s labour legislation. The motorway construction started at the end of 2007, with 75% of the project being financed through the European Union Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-Accession (ISPA) and 25% through the Bulgarian state.

Workplace violations

Since the beginning of the construction work, with most workers living in the Pernik region, the regional council of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (Конфедерация на независимите синдикати в България, CITUB) has received information about the violation of workers’ rights at the construction site. Such violations relate to poor working conditions and problems with the payment of wages. The most important violations were as follows:

• workers were forced to work on public holidays, without any permission from the regional Labour Inspectorate and written recommendation. If they refused to work the extra hours, they were not paid their monthly wage in full, which amounted to between BGN 310 (€158 as at 18 December 2009) and BGN 575 (€293);

• no rules were respected regarding working time, which amounted to nine to 10 hours a day and sometimes even more. No additional wage was paid in accordance with the law for the extra hours worked;

• the workplace did not provide for sanitary facilities, nor were any safety provisions in place or work clothes supplied.

The company had employed many workers from Turkey to do the same jobs as those employed from Bulgaria, but according to unofficial information the wages of the Turkish workers were higher than those of the Bulgarian workers.

Trade union established at company

In early August 2009, a trade union was established for the first time at Mapa Cengiz. A letter informed the employer about the new trade union organisation and its affiliation to CITUB. Since then, the employer has strongly resisted any trade union initiatives.

The employer does not respect the trade unions according to the law. When trade unionists, together with media representatives and experts from the regional Labour Inspectorate, visited the workplace, the employer refused to answer any of their questions.

The supervision of the construction technology was assigned to the consortium of the French engineering group Luis Berger and the UK-based engineering and development consultancy Mott MacDonald. The consortium is registered in Bulgaria and was also employed by the National Agency for Road Infrastructure to coordinate health and safety at work. However, it seems that no proper control of the equipment or the health and safety regulations was observed at the motorway construction site. Although CITUB representatives requested to consult the health and safety regulations, they were not supplied by the consortium.

Moreover, Mapa Cengiz dismissed one of the trade union secretaries who had given a television interview on the working conditions at the company.

Labour inspections

In August–September, the regional Labour Inspectorate has run several controls at the company and found over 80 violations of workers’ rights, for which the employer was fined about BGN 20,000 (€10,193). In early September 2009, a meeting with the National Agency for Road Infrastructure was organised with the participation of government representatives, including experts from the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works (Министерството На Регионалното Развитие и Благоустройството, MRRB) and the General Labour Inspectorate Executive Agency (Изпълнителна Агенция-Главна инспекция по труда, GLI-EA), as well as trade union representatives and the company director.

Although Mapa Cengiz promised to improve working conditions for its employees and start negotiations with the trade unions, the employer has taken no further action in this regard since September. The company management usually prolongs the meetings for the purposes of collective bargaining and refuses to provide information to the trade union representatives. However, the trade unions achieved some improvement in working conditions, such as in relation to work clothes. Furthermore, the company agreed to consult with the trade unions on individual labour issues, while other problems related to working time, work organisation and payment of wages have not yet been solved. The employer also refused to provide facilities for trade union activities and tried to interfere in the organisation of trade union work.

Commentary

Several work-related accidents have occurred at the Lyulin motorway construction site, with the last one resulting in serious injuries at the beginning of November 2009. The regional council of CITUB reported the incident to the district attorney, including an opinion that workers’ lives and health were being put at serious risk at the motorway construction site managed by Mapa Cengiz. Trade unions informed again the MRRB, as well as the Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, and Chair of the Parliament, Tsetska Tsacheva, about the situation.

Ekaterina Ribarova, Institute for Social and Trade Union Research (ISTUR)