Oleg Budza, president of CNSM: The phenomenon of illegal work damages the state, undermines the people’s well-being and national security

Last week State Tax Service (SFS) announced the launch of a campaign to popularize and combat illegal work and/or wages “in envelopes”. The team of the TV show “Social Dialogue” organized a meeting with the social partners in the studio to discuss this phenomenon and identify ways to improve the situation.

Nicoleta Nemerenco, head of the General Risk Management Division at SFS, said that this campaign involves two steps: informing and raising awareness of the society and employers, the SFS employees will start tax audits at a representative sample of taxpayers in all economic areas of the Republic of Moldova. Tax audits will be made to taxpayers who are at increased risk of using illegal work and / or paying wages in the envelope.

“We are happy that concrete actions to combat illegal work have been taken. This phenomenon damages the state, undermines people’s well-being and national security. In order to fight this phenomenon, it is necessary for the enterprises to have a trade union organization, the employees to be well informed, to have a collective labour agreement. In this sense, we started the national campaign “Collective Labour Agreement – the guarantee of your rights”. On the basis of the collective labour agreement, the individual labour contract is concluded where it is clear what the real salary is, other aspects related to labour relations are specified,” says Oleg Budza, president of the National Trade Union Confederation of Moldova.

In turn, Leonid Cerescu, president of the National Confederation of Employers of Moldova, mentioned that employers have been aware of this phenomenon for many years, and policy proposals have been submitted to the authorities to reduce the level of the informal economy. “Employers strive for economic agents to work on equal terms and to honour their obligations to the state in accordance with the legislation. Those who do not honour these bonds are more advantageous than the economic agents that operate according to legislation and consequently become less competitive on the market. All economic agents need to work on equal terms,” he added.

In this context, Dumitru Stăvilă, the director of the State Labour Inspectorate, stated that the structure he runs continues to exercise state control according to the legislation in force. “Undeclared work can only be fought within multidisciplinary groups. For example, in 2012, when such groups were created, over 1,000 people were found to work “in shadow”. However, now the control area of ​​the Inspectorate is restricted, and this phenomenon can only be countered by unannounced controls,” said Dumitru Stăvilă.

Participants also referred to other ways of combating the phenomenon of illegal work, the role of partners in this process, and the need to combine the efforts of all parties. The opinions and views expressed by the social partners will be fully exposed in the near future within the “Social Dialogue” show.

We point out that for the purpose of an effective awareness of society, the SFS, with the financial support of the UK Government, has launched some audio and video information spots and will distribute 10,000 leaflets across the country. The campaign will last three months and aims at irradiating wages “in envelopes” and illegal work, as well as defending honest taxpayers and creating equal business conditions.

Department of mass media and international relations of CNSM