USSCG confident that agreement on OKA will be reached by the end of the month

The Union of Free Trade Unions (USSCG) is confident that an agreement will be reached on a new General Collective Agreement by the end of this month, which will, as they said, be in the interest of everyone, primarily protecting the economic position of employees.

"As an organization that postponed the announced protest rally in order to provide another chance for social dialogue and reaching a compromise between the world of labor, capital and the Government of Montenegro, we are confident that an agreement will be reached by the end of this month that will be in the interest of everyone, primarily the protection of the economic position of employees," representatives of the USSCG told the Mina-business agency.

The USSCG said that in the negotiations so far, they have exhausted all the arguments that more than obviously supported the justification of the request for a salary increase, and they believe that both employers and the Government will, within this given deadline, look at the bigger picture and offer a model that will be in the interest of preserving the trend that was started by the Europe Now 1 and Europe Now 2 programs.

"It will also demonstrate a necessary step forward towards increasing, after more than a decade, the price of labor, and therefore wages, through social dialogue, and not through administrative means, or rather, through a decision by the Government of Montenegro," added the USSCG.

They stated that, although nominal wages have increased through the aforementioned programs, the fact is that the real purchasing power of citizens is lower.

"This is also proven by the results of the union consumer basket (SKP) for the first quarter, published by the USSCG, whose value is 2,09 thousand euros for a four-member household. This value is 2,2 percent higher than the previous quarter. If we compare the SPK for the observed quarter of this year with the first quarter of last year and the first quarter of 2024, we can conclude that in a period of two years, the SPK grew by 190 euros or ten percent," the USSCG stated.

Among other things, this information, they believe, leads to the conclusion that it is necessary to find an optimal solution for increasing wages.

When asked whether they would give up on the request to increase the calculation value of the coefficient, that is, to increase the salaries of all employees, the USSCG responded that in the negotiations so far, as a responsible social partner, they have received at least one reasoned reason why salaries could not be increased in the proposed manner, they would certainly consider further steps and be ready to accept realistic, justified and fact-based reasons.

"Since we have not received such assurances to date, we will certainly not give up on our intention to conclude the negotiations in a way that will mean improving the General Collective Agreement and extending its validity, as well as increasing the calculated value of the coefficient for all employees in Montenegro," the USSCG said.

When asked how much the failure to adopt a new General Collective Agreement affects the situation in the entire economy, but also the job security of employees, especially considering inflation and the departure of the workforce, the USSCG responded that as a country in which the culture of social dialogue is not at an enviable level, which is particularly pronounced in the economy and which is based on a negligible number of collective agreements, both at the sectoral level and in particular collective agreements with the employer, the General Collective Agreement remains a key tool for improving the minimum labor rights of employees in Montenegro.

"This act is also the crown and key result of the tripartite social dialogue and as such it is necessary to nurture it. This act regulates in more detail numerous rights from and based on work, such as the right to increase the number of days of annual leave, paid and unpaid leave, elements for calculating the basic salary, i.e. complexity coefficients and the calculation value of the coefficient, the basis for increasing the basic salary, i.e. past work, overtime, night work, work on public, other and religious holidays, work on Sundays and standby, severance pay for retirement, assistance in the event of the death of an employee or a member of his or her immediate family, as well as certain trade union rights," the USSCG specified.

The absence of this act, they believe, would indicate the collapse of the tripartite social dialogue and cause legal uncertainty, since it would depend solely on the Government and ultimately the Parliament whether the rights guaranteed by this act would be transferred to the Labor Law.

"Social dialogue and collective bargaining, as its highest expression, are precisely the mechanisms for achieving dignified working conditions, dignified wages and social peace as a prerequisite for retaining the workforce which, once it leaves Montenegro in search of better working conditions, almost remains an irretrievably lost resource," concluded the USSCG.