Once again we call for common sense and sit down to negotiate, otherwise KSS will make its decisions next week on how to proceed, I think it will not be fair to continue to be ignored,” said Blagoja Ralpovski, president of the Confederation of Free Trade Unions to Macedonia (KSS), which set a deadline of March 15 for the Government to harmonize the laws with the Law on Minimum Wage so that all wages can grow properly
“We demand harmonization of salaries in accordance with collective agreements and salaries in the public sector. Because the largest recipients of the minimum wage at the moment are public sector employees. If there are 80 thousand recipients of the minimum wage, those who receive the minimum and below the minimum wage, according to our analysis, 50 percent or about 40 thousand are in the public sector. With the increase of the minimum wage, that percentage in the public sector will be over 60,” said the KSS head.
“There is no social dialogue in Macedonia, and we give a chance to the dialogue because we are a union and in a real sense a representative of the workers. There was only a pay rise in 2019 of 5 percent in the public sector, there was a 10 plus 10 percent in education and about 20 to 30 percent in health only for certain groups. It is time to harmonize salaries because the public sector has become a social category and with such salaries we cannot go with reforms or digitalization in the public sector,” said Ralpovski.
