If an agreement is not reached this weekend with the management of the Airport of Montenegro (ACG) and with the relevant Minister of Capital Investments Ervin Ibrahimović in connection with the new Collective Agreement, a 20 percent salary increase for employees and changes in the calculated value of the wage coefficient, the union organizations of the airports in Tivat and Podgorica could organize one-hour warning strikes next week.
The trade unionists have already asked the management to make an official decision on the minimum work process in case the strike has to be further radicalized, this was confirmed unofficially by the "News" from circles close to the union leadership of both airports.
In the last four months, management and trade unions held six meetings that did not lead to an agreement on amendments to the Collective Agreement and the request for a 20 percent salary increase.
President of the Board of Directors of ACG Eldin Dobradžić told the trade unionists that the salaries of ACG workers have already been increased by 23,6 percent through the application of the "Europe Now" program, and that the company does not have the possibility to increase their salaries by another fifth because it would be an additional cost of three million. The management offered the trade unionists a salary increase first in the amount of 5 percent, and then after additional calculations in the amount of 7-8 percent, which they refused.
"Vijesti" is waiting for an official answer from the management of the state-owned company to the question of what they will do to prevent the warning strike of the employees.
Corrections of wage coefficients
"Vijesti" obtained the documentation (minutes and accompanying documents) from the unsuccessful meetings of the executive management and members of the Board of Directors of ACG with union representatives, who in the past months tried to find a compromise regarding labor-law issues, i.e. requests for a significant increase in wages for workers.
On May 13, the management sent the trade unions a proposal for amendments to the current Collective Agreement in ACG. According to the documentation, the key changes to the Collective Agreement initiated by the management are in the part of reducing the calculation value of the coefficient (OVK), which would be accompanied by a proportional increase in the coefficient of job complexity, which would keep the workers' wages the same or slightly increased, but the company would have a more favorable situation in relation to numerous due to the lawsuits brought against her by the employees for the allegedly denied part of their income from the past years.
In addition, the management in the amended Collective Agreement introduces a legal basis to, through the subsequent adoption of a special rulebook, envisage incentive measures for employees who behave responsibly and maintain the validity of their professional licenses for performing special tasks at airports, and more precisely define the employer's obligations regarding with transport of workers.
Executive management of ACG headed by the executive director Vladan Drašković, according to unofficial information from "Vijesti", is determined to eliminate most of the potential economic risks for the company's operations, which entails the possibility that workers will continue with numerous lawsuits disputing the method of calculation of the so-called of the starting part of salaries, as well as to improve the efficiency of ACG work by stimulating workers who behave responsibly towards their obligations, acquire and maintain one or preferably more professional licenses. The existing regulations do not give the employer the opportunity to sanction workers who intentionally lose their licenses by losing their jobs and thus provide themselves with easier jobs to which the employer then has to redeploy them, and at the same time, ACG constantly lacks operational staff with adequate licenses. Therefore, Drašković proposed a reverse logic - monetary stimulation of workers who responsibly treat their obligations and work on their professional training and improvement through the acquisition and maintenance of licenses.

According to the documentation that "Vijesti" has access to, the most important thing for Drašković is to, as he says, "eliminate the knife that someone constantly holds under the ribs of ACG and with which he constantly bleeds the company" in the form of multimillion-dollar lawsuits by employees against ACG due to the poor work of the former management, which resulted in less paid workers' salaries.
"Advocating for the complete preservation of all acquired labor rights, I simultaneously express strong opposition to phenomena that have caused serious damage to the ACG system, and which arise from existing solutions. As the disputed solutions are still in force, the danger increases over time that the harmful effect will continue and deepen", said Drašković in one of his written addresses to the leaders of the Podgorica Airport trade union. Slobodan Martinović and Tivat Airport Ljubisa Džudović.
Out-of-court settlements 6,5 million
During the negotiations, it was also stated that ACG was during the mandate of the former executive director Danilo Orlandić (SD) concluded out-of-court settlements with the employees "according to which the difference in salary was paid in the name of the starting part of the salary for the period from 2011 to January 2019 in the total amount of 6.553.174,77 euros."
The problem still persists because the employees continued to sue ACG on the same basis, so from January 16, 2019 to September 5 this year, another 175 lawsuits were filed. According to the executive management, the best way to prevent this is to change the Collective Agreement in the KLA part, which would be reduced from the current 358 euros to the amount of 90 to 120 euros. So far, the union is firmly against this because, as they unofficially explain, they do not trust the employer that by adequately increasing the coefficients of the complexity of the work, they will maintain the same or provide a slightly increased salary.
Over the past four years, several hundred ACG workers have sued the company because, in the period from 2011 to the end of 2018, they calculated a smaller starting part of their salary, paid less compensation for a hot meal than what they should have received, i.e. no winter pay , overtime and transportation costs. On average, these claims, that is, lawsuits per employee, amount to between 15 and 16.000 euros, with the largest part of these debts of ACG towards workers referring to the less paid starting part of their wages.
These claims of ACG employees, which, according to the auditor's findings for the year 2020, amounted to more than 14 million euros, and most of them arose during the time when Aerodrom was managed as an executive director Milovan Djurickovic (SDP, and later SD), and to a lesser extent during the mandate of his successor Danilo Orlandić (SD). None of the two of them, as well as the members of the former DPS-SP-SD-BS Board of Directors, have so far not been called to account for the multimillion-dollar damage suffered by this company.
Unions demand stimulation for all workers
The trade unionists insisted that salary incentives this year, as proposed by the management, should not be paid only to employees in the position of counter-subversion operators who are the most burdened with work, but to all workers, and said that "we should not make differences between employees, and that the right to the incentive should be achieved by all employees equally"
The union also insisted that all employees in operational services at airports receive a 20 percent incentive on their August salary "without selective remuneration of certain services".
They gave 830.000 euros for lawyers and default interest
It can be seen from the documentation that some of the workers who did not give up the lawsuits later mostly received ACG in court, but the courts determined different compensations because the judges calculated the KLA differently - in the amount of 90 euros as defined by the General Collective Agreement, up to 358 euros as written in the current Collective Agreement.
On August 11 of this year, the management told the union representatives that the uncertainty was created by the starting calculation salary and that even the experts hired could not determine this.
"ACG's assistant executive director for financial and accounting affairs, Ana Tošanić-Radunović, at the meeting of the ACG manager with union representatives on August 11, said that "salary calculation is done in accordance with the Collective Agreement and that creates ambiguity as to what the starting calculated salary means".
She pointed out that several experts from the financial profession have been engaged in this matter so far in order to solve this problem, "but that they could not determine what the loss accounting earnings are".
The President of the Board of Directors of ACG Eldin Dobardžić (URA) emphasized at the same meeting that the aim of the management is to, through amendments to the Collective Agreement, "stop the lawsuits of the employees of the Company in the part related to the issue of calculating the starting part of the salary". Vladan Drašković, by the way, is trying to reduce the number of ACG employees in such a way that when three employees leave the company naturally (due to retirement and the like), ACG hires a maximum of two new employees instead.
It was then presented to the trade unionists that they had spent 2022 euros for the engagement of lawyers in court cases based on employee complaints and for default interest from 828.177 until the end of July this year.
The management then, as stated in the documentation, announced that there were 790 permanent employees on the payroll, 126 fixed-term employees and 23 on temporary and casual contracts due to the needs of the season.
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