- Македонски
- English
Today, at exactly 9 am, at the offices of the Federation of Trade Unions of Macedonia (SSM), we were waiting for the Government representative to come and sign an Agreement on determining the amount of the minimum wage in gross amount starting with the payment for the month of February 2026, and this Agreement predicts increase in the minimum wage to 600 euros net amount, and as well predicts increase in the remaining wages by at least 6.000 denars.
But, these wages are not the only problem, the problem is the low wages in general that a huge number of workers in our country receive, and therefore the remaining wages must immediately be increased by at least 6.000 denars and the minimum wage must be increased to 600 euros!
Today, the masks fell, the lies that the Government representative had been telling in the past few days to create suspicion among the workers’ were exposed, today he did not come to our offices and we politely invited him… this showed that today they had other priorities, and confirmed that increasing the minimum wage, nor increasing the other salaries of the workers’ is one of their priorities.
But a small crisis and they immediately started bidding for an increase in the workers' salaries… Today they are saying that they will do everything and accept all the demands that were the reason for a huge trade union struggle of the trade union UPOZ, struggle that they have been leading for almost a year and for those demands the workers in the administration even protested last year when the Government then refused to sit on the table and agree with the trade union and the workers’.
It is good that after the large workers' protest organized by SSM on 28th January, the Government representative accepted the proposal of the UPOZ Trade Union to increase salaries in the administration and judiciary, and we strongly believe that they should have signed the collective agreement immediately and without delay.
It was confirmed that they are only talking and not acting… Today they were supposed to increase the salaries of the employees in the administration by 40%, but they did not show up at the signing of the Agreement and the Collective Agreements, they are running away from responsibility, same way as they have been running last year.
Additionally, public sector workers should know that the Government’s Request for the abolition of the provisions of the General Collective Agreement for the public sector in the section on salary calculation (average salary by complexity coefficient) the same as for the officials, means a reduction or cancellation of workers' salaries by x(12.6%) + y(9.2%) = z(21.8%) for 130,000 public sector workers or in coins…they want to take 3 coins from the workers’ and give them 1 coin back , which is unacceptable.
Additionally, the request of individuals from the Government for the abolition of the General Collective Agreement for public sector means that employees’ will be left without jubilee awards, without K-15 (education, health, defense, police, etc.), without supplemental pay that was increased by the General Collective Agreement for the public sector.
We ask the question whether this Government not only doesn’t want to give the workers a salary increase, but they also want to take everything from the workers!?
