Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine

The Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine (known by its Ukrainian acronym, FPU) is Ukraine's largest trade union centre in Ukraine, with more than 4.8 million members. As of 1 August 2019, 44 national trade unions and 27 regional trade unions were affiliated to the FPU.

The aim of the FPU is to express and represent the interests and protect the rights of its member organisations, coordinate their collective actions, promote unity in the trade union movement, represent and protect labour and the socio-economic rights and interests of trade union members before state and local authorities, represent the interests of members in their relationship with employers and their organisations and represent its members in interactions with other citizens’ associations.

The FPU main tasks are protection of labour, socio-economic rights and interests of trade union members; social protection of trade union members and their families; legal protection of trade union members; strengthening of FPU influence on political life and in the formation of the civil society; improvement of the social contract with other trade unions, employers and the state; cooperating with other trade unions and their associations; building and maintaining the equality of rights and opportunities for men and women; strengthening the FPU as a democratic trade union and strengthening and widening FPU international relations.

At the international level, the FPU is affiliated with the International Trade Union Confederation and Pan-European Regional Council.

The FPU is participating in the United Nations Global Compact and has a consultative status with the UN ECOSOC.

The Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Ukraine was established after Ukraine became independent on 6 October 1990. It was a successor to the Ukrainian Republican Council of Trade Unions, which was part of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions. The declaration creating the FPU was signed by 25 national and 24 regional trade unions.

In November 1992, at its Second (Extraordinary) Congress, the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Ukraine was renamed the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine.

In June and July 2011, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine opened 35 criminal cases against the FPU for alleged misappropriation of sanatoriums. In November, Vasyl Khara, the president of FPU resigned

In 2013 and 2014, during the Euromaidan protests, the union's office in Kyiv, the Trade Unions Building, served as the headquarters for the protesters. As a consequence of the fighing, the building burned to the ground.

In June 2014, a group of people wearing army fatigues bearing the insignia of Right Sector and Social-National Assembly stormed the FPU Council in Kyiv in an attempt to disrupt the election of a new leadership. It was unclear whether they had any relation to the Right Sector and Social-National Assembly group themselves.

In 2020, after the election of Volodymyr Zelenskyy the government doubled down on earlier legal processes to aquire property owned by the FPU. The same year, the Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigation alleged that union officials had sold 80 properties illegally by not consulting with the government before selling.

In 2022, the government passed controversial labour laws that invalidated collective agreements during martial law, legalised zero-hour contracts, increased the maximum legal work day to 12 hours, and allowed employers to fire workers without justification. As a response, the FPU presented a challenge in the Constitutional Court and with the International Labour Organization.

In April 2025, the union's president Grygorii Osovyi was put under house arrest along with the leader of the KVPU, amid government moves to seize property owned by the FPU, an action sparking response from the international labour movement. The reasoning for the arrest being misappropriation of property the government sees as their own.

On April 22, the headquarters of the FPU were seized and transferred to a private trust by the Asset Recovery and Management Agency.

1992: Stoyan Alexander Nikolaevich

2005: Yurkin Alexander Valentinovich

2008: Vasyl Khara

2011: Yuriy Kulyk

2014: Grygorii Osovyi

• Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine
• National Confederation of the Trade-Union Organizations of Ukraine
• Central Union of Consumer Associations of Ukraine

Notes

Sources

• ICTUR; et al., eds. (2005). Trade Unions of the World (6th ed.). London, UK: John Harper Publishing. ISBN 0-9543811-5-7.

• Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine