Today the 10th session of the Economic and Social Council was held, which was attended by the members of SSM, Darko Dimovski, President of SSM, Zivko Danevski, President of the AGRO Union and Ljupco Radovski, President of STKC, together with the Minister of Labor and Social Policy, Jagoda Shahpaska, the Deputy President of the Government, Fatmir Bitiqi, the President of ORM, Angel Dimitrov and other representatives of the social partners. On the session it was debated on several agenda points, including the harmonization of the minimum wage, in accordance with the Law on Minimum Wage, and as a proposal of SSM new items 5 and 6 were added: "Adoption of a proposal for Ratification of Convention 190 of the International Labor Organization - ILO" and "Consideration of the request by the stakeholder for a draft law, Draft Law on Contentious Procedure submitted by SSM".
The issue of harmonizing the amount of the minimum wage was opened at the session, in accordance with the Law on Minimum Wage, where the data on the basis of which the harmonization of the minimum wage is performed were presented. The members of the ESC agreed to continue the debate on this item at the next session, due to the serious remarks conveyed by SSM regarding the method of calculation and harmonization of the minimum wage.
The session also reviewed the Annual Report on the work of the Economic and Social Council for 2020, which listed the challenges for the functioning of the ESC and recommendations for its further improvement.
As an item on the agenda of this session was the Implementation of the work plan for review of occupations 2018/2021, according to which a total of 60 occupations have been prepared and they have been published on the web portal zanimanja.mk, as well as the plan for the number of occupations that will be prepared by the end of 2021.
The members of the ESC unanimously agreed on SSM's proposal for Ratification of Convention 190 of the International Labor Organization, which provides an additional mechanism for protection against harassment and violence in the workplace for all workers.
Also, SSM received support from the Organization of Employers regarding our serious remarks on the introduction of mandatory mediation before initiating court proceedings for protection of workers' rights in the new Draft Law on Contentious Procedure, and on this issue, the social partners agreed that on the next session of the ESC, a representative of the Ministry of Justice to give a specific explanation of the purpose of introducing such a mechanism that is contrary to the Constitution, the Labor Law and the Law on Peaceful Settlement of Labor Disputes.
