I would like to draw attention to a public institution that caused serious damage during the governance of the Democratic Party of Moldova, through their political co-operation and neglect of statutory obligations, spending the money of employees and ignoring the abuses that they have been subjected to constantly. I want to talk about the cowardice of the trade unions in Moldova.

In recent years, the PDM periodically held rallies in support of their own image, organizing buses to bring people from all districts of Moldova. For example, in October 2018, people were brought to the launch of the “fourth path to rescue Moldova.” In 2019, on May 9 and during the June post-election gatherings people again were brought in an organised manner in order to applaud the PDM leaders. The abuses actually culminated in June 2019, when the PDM reserved the Great National Assembly Square (PMAN) for several weeks. They claimed that there will be massive manifestations, but did not publicly disclose their purpose.

Instead, the information hidden from the public was more than worrying: groups of doctors, teachers, educators, social workers and culture workers were kept on permanent stand-by through contradictory orders transmitted several times a day: show up on Saturday, or Sunday, at 10 am, or at 12 pm. The PDM instructions were threatening: those not present at rallies will have problems at their workplace.

And the poor people came. On 9 June 2019, medical workers, pedagogues, social workers, educators and postal operators climbed into organized minibuses and marched to PMAN on the searing heat to see a horrible show with some mistreated turkeys.

Each month, money is collected from the salaries of all employees in the public system for the maintenance of trade unions, which protect their rights. But the trade unions not only did not defend the rights of these employees, instead they wasted their money and applauded the party. This is a fraud, a scam, at the level of the Criminal Code, right?

I opened the web page of the Confederation of Trade Unions in Moldova and I see pompous titles: “The Confederation strengthens its activity at the territorial level,” “CNSM attended the high level summit with IMF and WB,” “Festive Conference,” etc. All this consolidation and celebration took place precisely at the same time when people were harassed and forced to rally, forced to applaud for political deadweights, pressured to leave their houses on weekends and stand in the sun.

Unfortunately, there is no press release about the rights of employees in the public system who have been abused throughout this period. Or about many other abuses caused to employees. Perhaps employees should have addressed the law enforcement authorities themselves, as well as the trade unions. This should have been done, but the system was captured; whoever you appealed to, you would have problems.

This week, global trade unions have appealed to the world leaders meeting at the G20 Conference from Osaka. Trade unionists around the world, along with civil society representatives, demanded special rights to protect the integrity of whistleblowers. “The integrity of whistleblowers around the world contributed to the salvation of multiple human lives, and billions of dollars from the public funds, but many of them suffer severe consequences because they speak about the wrongdoings they see at their workplace,” said Maria Emilia Berazategui, representative of Transparency International, a member of the G20’s Anti-Corruption Task Force. In Chisinau, we are just beginning to expect a purge of the alleged defenders of employees.

Alina RADU, alina.radu@zdg.md