Can workers who receive the minimum wage for their work count on an increase for next year? This should be decided during negotiations between unions, employers and the government. This year’s request is for the salary to be increased to 310 euros. The crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the non-formation of the Government, bring additional uncertainty to this year’s talks.
The minimum wage that workers take home is not enough even for a basic consumer basket, while summers and winters could be called a luxury.
It would look like this in the last five years:
During 2015 and 2016, the price of labor per hour was 1 euros, or between 170 and 185 euros.
In 2017, 1.2 eurps per hour, ie between 185 and 195 euros, in 2018, 1.4 euros per hour, ie about 210 euros, and last year it was about 230 euros.
Today it amounts to 250 euros.
“The problem is that we have had a postponed request for two years for the minimum price of labor to reach the value of the minimum consumer basket, which is a survival basket,” said Zoran Stojiljkovic from the Nezavisnost union on August 19.
The value of that basket is around 310 euros. On the other hand, employers, who, in addition to money for basic earnings, also pay taxes. Two opposing positions are on the negotiating table every year during August.
“Both are right. For workers, that is the net salary they bring home, which now amounts to this increase from last September… Which now amounts to 250 eurps, so it is not even up to the level of the minimum consumer basket. And they are rightly asking for more, they want a larger amount. However, for the employer, that worker to whom he pays the minimum wage does not cost 250, but 400 euros because of taxes and contributions,” says Jelena Zarković from the Faculty of Economics.
The Association of Independent Trade Unions says that the negotiations should be postponed.
“Normally, all of us who are in this business would like, not to have a minimum wage of 310 euros, but to be 500 or 800 euros, because that would mean that Serbia is a highly developed country,” says Ranka Savic.
However, that is not the case, so she suggests that we should wait for the formation of the government, see its plan, economic trends, the consequences of the epidemic, and only then negotiate the minimum price of labor, in order to reach a more realistic solution. She points out irregularities in the selection of representative unions to represent workers.
“It suits every government to have unions that, to use that term, do not wave much, that do not create problems and with which it is possible to reach an agreement very easily or relatively easily,” says Savic.
The government, as a third party in the negotiations within the Socio-Economic Council, should not cut but be a mediator, explains Zarković. She recalls the crisis from 2008, when the government increased wages, but after 2012, the minimum wage was completely frozen. The long-term solution, she believes, is a lower tax or its abolition on minimum wages.
“As wages rise, the amount of payroll taxes paid is higher to compensate for this low loss,” says Zarkovic.
The deadline for this year’s agreement on minimum wages for now is September 15, Nova reports.
