The Federation of Trade Unions (SSM) held a protest in Skopje on Sunday to express dissatisfaction over MPs failure to adopt legislative changes making Sunday a rest day and increasing the minimum wage to stand at 60% of the average salary.
Unions are asking MPs to adopt changes to the Law on Labor Relations declaring Sunday a rest day, as well as changes to the Law on Minimum Wage. They also demand for a general collective agreements to be signed in the public and private sectors.
SSM president Darko Dimovski urged MPs to endorse legislative changes making Sunday a rest day.
“92% of workers were supposed to be resting today, while the remaining 8% should have gotten a 50% higher daily wage. Therefore, I’m calling on MPs to adopt legislative changes set to benefit workers,” Dimovski noted.
He also reiterated requests for increasing the minimum wage, which should stand at 60% of the average salary, that is, at Mden 18,000.
“Salaries should rise due to increased living expenses. This also requires changes to collective agreements,” said the SSM president, adding that the number of minimum wage workers has increased from 30,000 to 110,000.
During the protest, Dimovski also held a meeting with MPs, after which he said that they’ve promised to adopt legislative changes making Sunday a rest day over the course of next week, adding that they’ll come into force on January 1, 2022.
“We’ve received a guarantee, there’s a solution, we’ll sit down and hold talks over adopting legislative changes for increasing the minimum wage,” Dimovski stressed.
