Conflicts in legislation limit the right of transport sector workers to hold strikes, Program Director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union Maksym Scherbatiuk has said.

"Given legislative conflicts, in fact, employees in this [transport] sector are limited. We're trying to help win back this right [to strike] through the European Court of Human Rights," he said at a meeting of the press club in Kyiv on Monday.

At the same time, he added: "Instead of establishing a clear mechanism for conducting strikes in this area, quite the contrary, the law is so confusing that it's currently impossible to do it in Ukraine, in particular, in the transport sector."

He said that the law gives a range of opportunities for the work of trade unions, but at the same time, many trade unions are limited in their rights.

"The state does not contribute [to the work of trade unions]. There are certain protective mechanisms that do not work today," Scherbatiuk said.

The deputy chairman of the Vinnytsia regional trade union organization of workers, Andriy Bondarenko, in turn, said: "The procedure [for holding strikes] is so bureaucratized that it cannot be fulfilled."

He also noted that the complexity in declaring a workers strike lies in the obstruction of the work of trade unions by employers.

Scherbatiuk also lamented the fact that the wages of Ukrainians are low.

"It [the wage] is based on the living wage, which is currently understated. The base under this figure has not been revised since 2000, and a decade has passed since the revision of the consumer basket, on the basis of which this living wage is formed," he said.

He said that most people in Ukraine receive a salary of less than UAH 2,500.

"The activity of trade union organizations is important in that aspect in order to seek a review of this figure and change certain things at legislative and actual levels," he said.