A group of Railway Transport workers (ŽPCG) fears that due to unrealized repairs, five wagons will not be able to transport passengers from September and accuse the management of being to blame for the alleged chaos in that state-owned enterprise. The management replied that all important business indicators indicate that the situation of the company this year is better compared to the previous one and that there is no chaos.
The Secretary of the Majority Representative Trade Union of Railway Transport, Mirko Rmandić, told "Vijesta" that the workers are upset about the unrealized repair of five wagons and fear that from September they will not be able to fulfill their obligations from the Contract on Public Transport with the Government, since, due to the necessary repairs for for which tenders have not yet been announced, three more local trains will be out of rail traffic.
Speaking on behalf of a group of workers, Rmandić states that the situation in ŽPCG is bad and that the main culprit for the chaos and bad interpersonal relations is the executive director Predrag Popović.
"Trains are late, and interpersonal relations are very bad because of the intrigues, untruths and gossip that Popović preys on. "It also happens that in one party that follows the train, no one talks to anyone when it comes to the staff on the train," Rmandić points out.
He adds that their director does not listen to the authorities in the Ministry of Transport, nor does he consult with professional managers and directors of ŽPCG because, as he claims, he was appointed by Prime Minister Duško Marković and "gave him a free hand to do what he wants and desires".
The management told "Vijesta" that it is not clear to them how the group of ŽPCG workers came to know that there is currently chaos in the company.
"Revenues from the sale of tickets for seven months are 28,76 percent higher or in the absolute amount of 331.071 euros, and the estimate is that the total revenues on this basis in 2018 will be higher than in 2017 by about 500.000. Also, the savings that have been achieved based on investment repairs of rolling stock during the last year amount to over 600.000 euros", says the administration.
They add that in order to improve the overall situation in ŽPCG, in recent months, especially since the beginning of the summer season, they have taken certain measures with the aim of improving work and technological discipline and greater control over the execution of work duties and responsibilities, which resulted in a certain reaction or dissatisfaction of part of the employees .
Rmandić says that Popović took over management of the company in April 2017, that his attitude towards employees, but also towards vehicles and towing vehicles, is questionable.
"The workers are also outraged by the fact that he did not systematize the workplaces and the collective agreement. Therefore, he did not adapt them to the Law on Wages, which was adopted on February 16, 2016, even though it was an obligation and one of the planned priorities," stated Rmandić. Because of this omission, as he added, more than 100 employees with sixth and seventh degrees of professional education suffer the most. 402 employees work in the railway company.
Rmandić states that the executive director has already managed to change four executors to the position of director of the Sector for Technical Activities.
"How well he manages and takes care of the correctness of the trains, the best indicator is that in the first four months of 2018, 114 trains were cancelled. No one suffered the consequences for that, nor took responsibility," emphasized Rmandić and concluded that in a little more than a year, three cars for the transport of passengers were severely damaged, which were out of service for 11 months and 10 days, and no compensation was paid for the damage.
"The director works according to the law" or "appoints loyal personnel"
Rmandić says that the director "resorted to one tactical move - individual changes and additions to the Rulebook on the organization and systematization of workplaces, through individual declarations of board members by phone."
"Thus, in the opinion of professional workers in this field, there is a violation of the Rulebook, because he appoints and assigns people to certain jobs that are of special professional importance without passing professional qualifications and checking the ability of work qualities, using the discretionary right of the director and avoiding the publication of internal advertisements. He appoints workers loyal to him, which causes great indignation among the employees of ŽPCG. "He even ignored the opinion of the relevant authorities from the company in cases of the need to announce a public advertisement and fill vacant positions," claimed Rmandić.
Regarding the dissatisfaction of the group of ŽPCG workers regarding the amendment of the Act on Systematization and the Collective Agreement, the management responds that "all activities related to that issue that have been done or are being done in ŽPCG are carried out in accordance with the law".
The CAF train did not run for five months
The management of ŽPCG decided, based on the remarks made by the control, to postpone the inclusion in traffic of four passenger cars and ask the company "Šinvoz" Zrenjanin to eliminate the mentioned defects within the warranty, which was accepted.
As for the "Bcx" type cars, they expect the handover in Zrenjanin to be on August 15.08.2018, XNUMX.
To the questions of "Vijesti" whether it is true that the CAF train on which the wheels were replaced in Macedonia was out of service for about half a year and how much it cost to replace the wheels and the daily wages for the engineers, the management answered that at the beginning of 2018 it was determined that it was necessary replace the wheels on the CAF train.
"At that time, ŽPCG did not have enough capacity to replace the wheels independently, so we engaged the company MZT Skopje for raising the train and replacing the wheels, and the costs of this work amounted to 57.230 euros, according to a public tender. For this reason, the train was out of service for a period of five months. The amount of per diems paid to the engineers who stayed in Macedonia are in accordance with the Regulation on the compensation of expenses of employees in the public sector", explained the members of the administration. The disgruntled workers state that the replacement of the wheels cost about 40.000 euros, and the daily wages for the engineers about 14.000 euros. "We are talking about 70 foreign daily wages. During that time, executive director Popović receives a salary of 1400 euros, along with a pension," Rmandić added.
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