Poverty by law: why employees of military registration and enlistment offices receive lower than minimum wage

Employees of the Moscow military registration and enlistment offices told "NI" about their salaries, which were lower than unemployment benefits.

Anna Alyoshina

The current draft law on the budget allocates 3.11 trillion rubles under the section "National Defense", and 3.37 trillion rubles under the section "National Economy". The government and the Duma explain the reorientation of priorities by the crisis situation caused by the pandemic. It is known, however, that in the pre-crisis plan, spending through the Russian Ministry of Defense was supposed to be cut by 120 billion rubles, the coronavirus adjusted the cuts to 200 billion.

The course towards gradual demilitarization, implemented by the government's economic bloc, is already yielding tangible results and is reflected in specific "estates".

Employees of the Moscow military commissariat turned to the editorial office of Novy Izvestia with complaints about extremely low wages. The interlocutors wished to maintain their confidentiality.

- For responsible work, for serving the Motherland, people living in Moscow receive no more than 13-15 thousand rubles in their hands. At the same time, the president, the guarantor of the Constitution and the government constantly tell us from the TV screens how illegal, how immoral, to have a salary in Russia below the minimum wage. Why are these presidential instructions at variance with the order of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation No. 545? - says an employee of the military commissar.

According to the order of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Russian Federation dated 08.28.2020 No. 542n, the value of the subsistence minimum in the II quarter of 2020 in Russia is for the working-age population - 12392 rubles (11,468 rubles per capita).

In Moscow - the cost of living in the II quarter of 2020. defined at 20361 rubles (17841 rubles - per capita).

Last updated on September 18, 2019, the order of the Russian Ministry of Defense "On the system of remuneration of civilian personnel (workers) of military units and organizations of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation" signed by the Minister, General of the Army Sergey Shoigu indeed establishes a list of official salaries significantly lower than the established minimum wage.

So, according to this order, in the military commissariats of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and municipal military commissariats, salaries are higher than the minimum wage only for the military commissar and his deputy, namely, from 15.420–19.540 rubles, depending on the rank of the commissariat.

The salaries of all other civilian personnel of military units and organizations of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, according to this document, do not reach the minimum wage. The assistant military commissar, the head of the section, the head of the section, the senior assistant to the head of the section, the assistant to the head of the section, the head of the group, and so on, receive less.

The interlocutor of Novy Izvestia is a retired officer. He works in one of the military enlistment offices of the capital as an assistant to the head of the department. The issue of extremely low salaries in his institution has been raised for at least five years, but the issue is not being resolved. Indexing is underway, and on this the mission is fulfilled, as they say.

"In my employment contract, the salary is 8900 rubles. I work for one and a half rates. In recent years, I have not received a salary of more than 15 thousand rubles with kopecks per month. Prizes - something about 1500-1700 rubles - go to the store once. Our military registration and enlistment office employs about 80 people, and everyone, except for the authorities, has approximately the same salaries. At the end of the year, sometimes at the end of half a year or a quarter, with the so-called "Sobyanin allowances" payments up to the minimum wage are enough for us, but how can we live a whole year on 15 thousand? Many do not hold out until December, quit", - says the source.

"Before Anatoly Serdyukov was appointed Minister of Defense, each military enlistment office in the country was a separate legal entity and received its appropriations from the Ministry of Defense directly. Serdyukov reshaped the structure of the local military administration - all military enlistment offices became departments of city military enlistment offices, and the principles of financing soon changed. Salaries have dropped several times at once", - says the source.

According to him, the situation with chronic low salaries has led to the fact that in all the military registration and enlistment offices of the country, even in large cities, only pensioners, students and "pimped" boys-sergeants, according to whom it was agreed that they are listed in the military unit, remained to work. but in fact they sit out at the military commissars.

"The problem is not only that the salaries are low. People work out their 40 hours a week and must somehow exist for a tiny fraction from month to month, and all the additional payments - this is such an indulgence of a recommendatory nature - may or may not come. Article 133 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation states that the monthly wage of an employee who has worked the norm of working hours and fulfilled the labor standards cannot be lower than the minimum wage. The employee is required to pay extra up to the regional minimum wage monthly, and not once a quarter or a year. But no one is afraid of anything at the top, and our employees of the military registration and enlistment office, who tried to complain, have already been fired”, - the source says.

In his opinion, the scheme with deferred governor's additional payments up to the minimum wage provokes corruption: the one who is responsible for the distribution of funds is interested in the fact that by the end of the year as many employees as possible quit, not having endured these same annual "bonuses", then they will remain in the "bins". Or - the same "saved" money can not be paid for a year, but twisted in bank accounts.

The interlocutor assumes that such a "business idea" only in Moscow, according to the most conservative estimates, could bring interested parties more than 150 million rubles.

- The question is, who created such a payment system? Why is the monthly minuscule, and then hope for the best, maybe we will pay, or maybe not. This creates a crazy turnover of personnel, which certainly does not have a beneficial effect on the institutions of the structure of the Russian Armed Forces. Pennies are received by people who are artificially transferred from the category of military personnel to civilian personnel, although their functions are utterly military: mobilization work, conscripts, preparation of resources to replenish the Armed Forces for a special period. Almost every employee of the military registration and enlistment office, down to the lower levels, actually has access to state secrets, even monthly receives some ridiculous hundreds of rubles for this work with classified materials, and turnover and state secrets, in my opinion, are poorly compatible.

Now, in a pandemic, these personnel miscalculations have led to the fact that the military registration and enlistment offices almost overnight became empty. When the main staff of an enterprise or institution is at the age of 65-70 +, then, in theory, what happens to such an enterprise in a pandemic? It stops working. So the military commissars should now, according to the same principle, go home, which means that there is no one to conduct military mobilization and registration-draft work in the Russian army? The commissioners had to urgently invent reports - employees are asked to write statements that voluntarily, despite their age, they remain in their jobs. The situation with graying military registration and enlistment offices is typical for the whole country, the interlocutors say.

"The problem is that people who have nothing to do with and have no skill in this industry are engaged in optimizing military spending - they are the financial and economic block of the government, they just pick up a calculator in their warm offices and cut it. So people in uniform were the first to go under the knife, and the space industry, for example, removed from the bosom of the army, has already bent. The next in line are military enlistment offices. After Serdyukov's reform, the governor is responsible for conscription into the army in the region, and in the region - the head of the region. And among these officials there are not only non-serving men, but often women in general. Officials are always far from the army. Of course, this area of responsibility should not fall on them, but on the active military”, - says State Duma deputy Alexander Sherin, who dealt with the problem of low salaries of civilian personnel of the RF Armed Forces.

"Today we have a sharp imbalance: good salaries for contract soldiers, good salaries for officers. But for everyone who, conventionally, does not get under arms, but continues their military activities, the salary is extremely low. We are talking about war veterans, military men who have passed hot spots, and the teaching staff of military educational institutions. Yes, they have social benefits from the state and pensions, but I assure you, they do not cover the amount of illnesses earned that remain with them for life. So can you not take away the opportunity to work, how much work? In any case, combat veterans are the most combat-ready part and the benefits from them in the event of mobilization are clearly greater than from untrained 18-year-old guys", - says the deputy.

The parliamentarian adds that he has repeatedly addressed the question of low salaries of civilian personnel of the RF Armed Forces to the government. “There is only one answer, which has already turned into a meme: there is no money”, - Sherin comments.

The military commissars themselves wrote to the Defense Ministry about low salaries. They gave the editors two responses to their letters.

“<…> In accordance with the Labor legislation of the Russian Federation, incentive payments (including bonuses) are part of the employee's monthly income, which means that they are taken into account when comparing the amount of his monthly wage with the minimum wage <…>

It should be noted that the budgetary allocations for the remuneration of civilian personnel brought to the Moscow military commissariat make it possible to ensure compliance with the legislation of the Russian Federation on the minimum wage, providing, if necessary, incentive payments in local regulatory acts by saving the civilian personnel payroll.

"At the same time, it is reported that the guarantees provided for by Article 133.1 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation for establishing the size of the minimum wage in the constituent entity of the Russian Federation are established only for employees employed in organizations financed from the budget of the constituent entity of the Russian Federation (local budget, own funds) and by virtue of the legislation of the Russian Federation Federations cannot apply to the civilian personnel of military units (organization)”, - says Sergey Mikishchenko, Deputy Director of the Department of Social Guarantees of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

“I receive replies, in which, without a glass, so to speak, you cannot make out anything. Only one thing is clear - everything is according to the law! Apparently, some minimum criteria of legality when calculating such salaries "helps" to withstand their splitting into an official salary, incentive and compensation payments. And also - the isolation of the so-called "civilian personnel" from the military organizations, the maintenance costs of which were attributed to the possibilities of regional budgets, instead of the federal one", - the staff of the Moscow military registration and enlistment office comment.