Uzbekistan Legalizes, Restricts Right to Strike

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a comprehensive legislative package on June 11, codifying the legal parameters for worker strikes while introducing severe administrative and criminal penalties for unauthorized labor stoppages.

The new omnibus legislation, Law LRU-1150, introduces structural amendments to Uzbekistan’s Labor Code, Criminal Code, and Code of Administrative Responsibility.

Under the revised Labor Code, employees are granted the formal right to strike exclusively when a collective labor dispute fails to achieve resolution through mandatory, pre-established conciliation procedures. The law explicitly emphasizes that participation must be entirely voluntary, strictly outlawing any form of coercion to force employees into participating or abstaining from industrial action.

However, the statute establishes rigorous procedural barriers to initiate a strike:

The Majority Threshold: A strike mandate can only be approved during a general staff meeting if more than 50% of the organization's attending personnel vote in favor.

The One-Month Filter: The vote must occur at least one full month before the scheduled commencement of the strike.

The Notification Chain: Trade union committees must serve a written notice to the employer within exactly one working day of the vote. The employer is then legally bound to notify state labor dispute regulators within 24 hours.

The law, which goes into effect three months after its official publication, imposes total prohibitions across critical public sectors and exceptional civil states.

Strikebreaking or organizing any work stoppage is strictly illegal during a state of war, a state of emergency, or during a general mobilization. Furthermore, the legislation completely strips the right to strike from healthcare workers, telecommunications personnel, and public utility staff in energy and water supply sectors.

Identical prohibitions apply to military personnel, judges, court employees, law enforcement officers holding special ranks, and all personnel listed on the State Register of Civil Service Positions.

Failure to adhere to these meticulous operational guidelines will result in immediate reclassification of the strike as illegal, triggering escalating statutory penalties.

For standard participation in an unauthorized strike, the Code of Administrative Responsibility imposes a fine ranging from 3 to 7 Base Calculating Values (BCV). Leading an illegal strike draws a sharper administrative fine of 10 to 15 BCV.

"Criminal liability will immediately be triggered if an individual continues to direct an illegal strike, or continues to coerce citizens into participating or refusing participation, after an initial administrative penalty has been applied," the legislation specifies.

According to the Criminal Code revisions, these offenses carry a fine of 100 to 300 BCV, up to 360 hours of mandatory community service, or a sentence of up to three years of restricted freedom or outright imprisonment.