Workers’ living standards have declined by more than 8% in the Ukraine since the fascists took power in 2014: That is, the national income share of the lowest quintile of the population (mainly composed of wage workers) in proportion to the richest quintile (Q5/Q1), declined more than 8% from 2014 to 2020.[1] At the same time, Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita (indicated by black squares in the figure) has stagnated in the Ukraine, even according to data from the pro-fascist World Bank. GDP per capita had been rising on average 7% per year from 1996 to 2008, a trajectory that might have returned the Ukraine by 2014 to the prosperity it enjoyed in Soviet times (cf. data point for 1988). But the economy has declined and stagnated since 2008, despite the huge amount of Western economic aid given to the Ukraine in recent years. If GDP per capita has stagnated, and the national income share of the lowest quintile—the poorest wage workers—has declined, that means that the income share that the workers have lost has gone to Zelensky’s oligarchic friends.

Furthermore, the Zelensky regime’s Law 5371, passed in 2022, will drive workers’ living standards down even further: it destroys workers’ rights. The International Labor Organization charged that the new legislation “weakens labor protection, narrows the scope of labor rights and social guarantees of employees, in comparison with the current legislation,” in contravention of Ukraine’s obligations to Brussels under the terms of its EU Association Agreement.[2] Andrey Reva, Ukraine’s former minister of social policy, has leveled similar charges: “Employees will no longer have any protection against arbitrary dismissal. Upon hiring, the employee will be asked to sign an employment agreement, which will allow the employer to obtain unilateral advantages during its conclusion and deprive the employee of any legal opportunities for his defense.”

[1] World Bank data. For more discussion of this statistic, cf. Gallagher, Robert L., Aristotle’s Critique of Political Economy; Routledge: London, 2018, chapters 13 and 14.

[2] https://www.sott.net/article/471638-Hidden-Western-hand-behind-new-British-style-Ukraine-anti-worker-laws-exposed-in-leaked-documents?fbclid=IwAR0nA6OmFlojh7yHAQrikUgjafMpL0BkW7AOWaMvukhTvVrDyOiovJQmfKw