Although it is an unpopular measure, a decision has already been made to strike due to the announced salary reduction in the Health Insurance Fund (HIF), says the president of the Confederation of Trade Unions of Macedonia (SSM) Slobodan Trendafilov in an interview on Radio Free Europe. The workers will also protest if they pass a series of laws with which the government wants to reduce wages, Trendafilov added.
“What I have as information as the head of SSM, is that a decision has already been made to strike. The strike is an unpopular measure that workers and unions resort to only in a situation where they have no way out, when they are pushed to the wall. It is understood that the livelihood of the workers is paramount and the workers cannot work with a 21% cut in wages and determined to strike. It is unfortunate that all of us will suffer because of this attitude of the officials, to implement this reduction of wages through the back door and to shift the blame to the unions. It is not the workers’ fault that their pay will be cut and not that they will strike because of a cut in wages. Those who create the policy are to blame. We expect reasonable people in the Management Board to make a reasonable decision and not to allow it and not to block the functioning of the HIF,” says the SSM president.
