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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Fairy-Tale Wages Did Not Work

29 December, 1998 - 00:00

The Verkhovna Rada failed to override the President's veto
on the poverty line and minimum pay bill.

Mr. Kuchma thinks that Hr 148 as minimum monthly pay and Hr 118.60 as
poverty line do not correspond to Ukraine's actual economic possibilities.
The bill's outspoken champion, Natalia Vitrenko, promptly countered by
proposing a number of additional finance sources, such as renationalizing
Utel, UMC, Air Ukraine International, taking Unified Energy System's debt
of Hr 1.5 billion, and "recommending" that Oleksandr Volkov and Pavlo Lazarenko
to return 80% of the money they had taken outside Ukraine.

Most legislators realized that the proposed measures were far out of
the ordinary, but all, Rukh members and Communists included, were mostly
interested to know what to tell their constituents. Ivan Sakhan, Minister
of Labor and Social Protection, assured all that wages would be increased
gradually, as much as possible. Only 210 Solons voted to override the President's
veto, although his proposal was supported by only 82.

 

 

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