Have you noticed that together with wage growth the number of job advertisements has increased in Ukraine in the last few months? Companies open vacancies, promise a good salary, free catering and even free transfers to work. Employers began competing for workers. Employees have more rights and, therefore, a more profound feeling of dignity now. All these are indirect consequences of the EU’s approval of visa-free travel for Ukrainians.
All right, but do you know there are opponents of visa-free regime in Ukraine? Is it the Russian Federation, the fifth column, border guards, who have to work more on the border crossings now or the European Union itself? Not even close.
Ukrainian businessmen have been advocating against visa-free travel more and more often.
Some of the entrepreneurs I know have already expressed their opinion in favor of cancellation of this law.
«Who’s going to work here if everybody leaves?”
“Only children and pensioners are staying. All the rest bailed out!”
“It’s been two months that I’ve been looking for a cook. All of them left. What’s the point in staying and earning nine thousand here, if they can get, at a minimum, three times more in the Czech Republic?”
“They all keep moving abroad. Say something wrong and you’ll immediately hear a snort and threats of quitting. It’s never been so hard for us to work in this country.”
“Half of my waiters have quit. Only the students stayed. They work either in the morning or in the evening depending on their study schedule. The overall salary in the city went up as well. I don’t even know what to do: if I pay my workers more, I will have to raise the prices on the menu.”
“Visa cancellation was a mistake. Ukrainians became cheap labour for the EU, while in Ukraine there is no one left to work.”
Such expressions have already become a tendency, they are no longer isolated cases. The already-existing confusion, common among businessmen, is now escalating into a strong dissatisfaction. And I suspect such mood in society is only going to expand.
It’s all down to the fact that not only does the visa-free regime presupposes a dignified border crossing, it also spreads European values deeper into Ukraine. Just as with the communication vessels law, the struggle for individual rights and dignified labour conditions slowly flows to us from the European Union.
Really, why should a person work him/herself to the ground for four thousand hryvnias if he/she can be hired even short-term abroad and earn much more money over the same period of time?
Will a worker tolerate insults and rudeness (not to mention threats and blackmailing) from his employer then? I doubt it.
Understanding that the situation on the labour market is now more competitive, will employees demand higher salaries, improvement of working conditions, official employment and vacations? Definitely.
An employer is no longer a God for an employee. There is an alternative. It is not necessary to use it, though: as we see, only 500 thousand Ukrainians have used this right during nine months after visas were cancelled. And the rules of the game on the Ukrainian labor market have already begun to change in favor of the worker.
Clearly, businessmen are not happy about it because employers have to respect workers, listen to their demands to raise salaries, and eventually they have to fight, compete for employees.
And all due to that damned visa-free regime. Do businessmen really need it? No, because they always had visas and travelled without any problems.
This is about small- and medium-sized businesses so far. But soon the oligarch’s enterprises will also feel this hunger for workers. They, who, among other things, made their fortunes by paying poor salaries to their workers. And then some party will announce that the country is getting empty and devastated because people emigrate so massively due to the visa-free regime. Such voices are already being heard.
That is how unexpectedly visa-free travels change the rules of the game in Ukraine, liberating its citizens.
Andrii Lyubka