The Post Office of Montenegro has been on a general strike since Monday, and more than half of the workers have so far declared that they accept the complete suspension of work, so that work activities in some branches may be reduced to a minimum, "Vijesti" has learned.
Negotiations between the two trade unions and the management of the Post Office on salary increases did not yield results yesterday. The single union demanded a 30 percent salary increase for employees without management members, while the New Union demanded a 20 percent raise for all, including management.
At the meeting, the representatives of the Post Office, according to "Vijesti" information, repeated their position that they cannot discuss any increase until they receive a nine-month report on operations (January-September), so that the increase in costs would not lead the company to a loss. No new round of negotiations was announced in the next two days.
The president of the strike committee of the United Trade Union, which organized a warning strike last week, Jugoslav Marković he told "Vijesti" yesterday that the representatives of the administration could not make any promises about salary increases.
"They referred to the report on the operations that they expect, and to our questions about the preliminary data, they could not communicate it. They could not say how much the profit could be, nor whether it could provide a salary growth of zero, two or ten percent. So we cannot postpone the announced strike because of an empty promise. The wages of postmen and counter workers are now at the level of 550 euros and are the lowest in the public sector. Inflation and rent increases have made those amounts meaningless, and the requested increase of 30 percent is the minimum we agree to," said Marković.
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He stated that participation in the general strike, which was properly announced to the employer, has been signed by 427 full-time employees so far, but that there are more signatures in branches and other municipalities that they have not received, which is why he expects that number to be significantly higher by Monday.
The Post has 948 permanent employees, of which almost two hundred are related to management, three are employed under a fixed-term contract, and 213 are employed through an agency for the temporary transfer of employees.
Marković states that more than half of the 730 workers, who are not part of the management, will be on a work stoppage from Monday, and that a small part of the employees will also work under takeover contracts.
“Those contract workers can take over some of our work, so the Post Office will probably function somehow. I apologize in advance to the citizens who will find it difficult to fulfill their needs due to the strike, but we had no other solution to draw the administration's attention to our problems and to hold elections for better standards for us and our families," said Marković.
President of the New Trade Union Organization Milan Gvozdenović, told "Vijesti" earlier that their executive board made a decision three days ago to join the negotiations, and that their request was a 20 percent salary increase for everyone.
When asked whether their union will participate in the announced general strike, if they do not receive the requested salary increase, Gvozdenović said that they have left it to their members to decide for themselves whether they will participate in it.
"We are in May of this year with the then director Dragan Tufegdžić agreed on changes in the coefficients by which the salaries of some of the employed postmen, counter workers, cashiers... were increased by about ten percent, and that we will discuss the next increase in October, when the nine-month financial report is completed. It was agreed that the entire realized profit of the company should be directed to increasing wages. When the new director came in June Josip Đurašković he said that what his predecessor promised will be fulfilled", Gvozdenović said before yesterday's negotiations.
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