Negotiations on the minimum price of labor in 2021, which by law should be completed by September 15, will begin today.
By 2025, Serbia should reach an average salary of 900 euros and a pension of 440 euros, said the Minister of Labor, Zoran Djordjevic, before today’s meeting of representatives of the state, trade unions and workers.
Djordjevic told Tanjug that the state is working with all measures in the direction of keeping workers on the one hand and not losing their jobs, and on the other hand to create good working conditions. He states that there is good cooperation with trade unions and employers, and that, as he says, they have understood the situation in which the state finds itself.
He pointed out that he expects the best measures that will go in the direction of fulfilling the goals of the “Serbia 2025” program, which, he added, were welcomed by unions and employers and said that the goal was “quite realistic”.
“We would like it to be more than that, but it is the minimum ladder that we all received as a task,” Djordjevic said. The president of UGS “Nezavisnost”, Zoran Stojiljković, believes that an agreement is possible, however, he says that the unions should postpone their request for a year that the minimum cannot be less than 300 euros.
By the way, the unions have been asking for a long time for the minimum to reach the value of the minimum consumer basket, which is around 310 euros. Stojiljkovic told Tanjug that this year’s talks on the minimum are further complicated by the pandemic, which will lead to a recession and a reduction in the social product. He also notes that the talks are taking place in a situation when we only have a technical government that is at the end of its mandate.
He states that reaching the minimum consumer basket would mean that the minimum would increase by about 25 percent.
“I see room for an agreement in the fact that we will somewhat reduce the minimum negotiating card and agree to a smaller one, and postpone for another year the promise that no one in the country will work for less than 300 euros,” said Stojiljković.
If the talks do not have the consent of the representative employers’ organizations and trade unions, the legal possibility is for the government to introduce a minimum wage with its decision.
“However, we do not have a certain situation that you will have a new government, especially in the operational sense, before September 15, which is why the responsibility has been increased,” Stojiljkovic points out.
Honorary president of UPS, Nebojsa Atanackovic, says that it would be best to temporarily “freeze” the minimum since a new government has not yet been formed, or to postpone the decision on increasing the minimum until the end of the year, in order to see how much economy will grow this year.
Atanackovic said in a statement for Tanjug that a collegium of the Social and Economic Council would be held on Friday, consisting of representatives of UPS, the Federation of Independent Trade Unions, UGS Nezavisnost and the Ministry of Labor, and that the meeting would discuss the date of the SES session.
“Everyone will express their position on the minimum price of labor,” says Atanackovic, adding that talks on that topic will begin in that way, but that only after that will official negotiations follow.
Last year, the government increased the minimum from 230 euros to about 250 euros in 2020, Nova reports.
