USSCG: We will no longer participate in the work of the Social Council, the Government is faking the process

The government has been playing with social dialogue for months, and because of the way this process is being faked, and until the government's behavior changes, the Union of Free Trade Unions (USSCG) will no longer participate in the work of the Social Council, the workers' organization announced.

They are saying that they do not want to give power to form, but rather want to build an efficient and constructive social dialogue, based on mutual respect and equality between social partners and the Government.

The USSCG announced that today's session of the Presidency of the Social Council, at which the Government was supposed to present its model for increasing employees' salaries, ended without a conclusion for the umpteenth time in the last eight months.

"Namely, the Government representatives offered to conclude a General Collective Agreement with coefficients that are yet to be agreed upon at the Working Group scheduled for July 15, but they conditioned their statement in favor of increasing the Calculation Value of the Coefficient (OVK) on reviewing the results of the tourist season, which will be known in October or November. With this, the Government has shown and confirmed an extremely irresponsible and frivolous attitude towards the most pressing existential issues of employees in Montenegro," it was announced.

The government, they point out, has been "playing with social dialogue for months" when it comes to this topic and, with its attitude of "disrespect" for social partners, is putting them in an undignified position.

"Since the initial statement of the Prime Minister from December last year, which he confirmed at the following four meetings, the Prime Minister has agreed that it is necessary to increase the salaries of employees due to the negative effects of inflation and to create the most favorable working and living conditions for employees and citizens in order to avoid the expected exodus, especially of young people, of the workforce on the day of our accession to the European Union. Up until the last meeting held on March 30 this year, the Prime Minister requested a postponement in order to have time to offer us a model for concluding a new General Collective Agreement (GCA) and increasing the salaries of employees, which is better than the model that we, as social partners (USSCG, SSCG and MECG), offered him in December. At his suggestion, we extended the validity of the GCA until April 30, so that at the meeting, which was scheduled for April 17 at his suggestion, he would inform us of the model for increasing salaries that the Government prefers. He neither held the meeting scheduled for April 17 with us, nor has the Prime Minister to this day honored us with the implementation of the conclusion that he himself had reached in several repeatedly insisted. On the contrary, we suddenly learn from his media statements that he is not up to date with the developments related to the OKU and the KLA, but that all his powers are vested in the Minister of Labor, Employment and Social Dialogue," the USSCG announced.

They add that the Minister of Labor (Naida Nišić) tells them in meetings that she cannot do anything on her own without the authorization of the Prime Minister (Milojko Spajić) and the Ministry of Finance.

"And so on in a circle. They have turned the social dialogue into a 'virtual circle', in which they constantly ask for time to tell us something concrete, and then they do not show up at the scheduled meeting or show up but do not have a concrete proposal. Such a social dialogue is faked by the Government and, therefore, dysfunctional and, until such behavior of the Government changes, the USSCG will no longer participate in the work of the Social Council, because we do not want to give force to form, but rather want to build an efficient and constructive social dialogue, based on mutual respect and equality of social partners and the Government."

The USSCG announced that it will continue to persevere in its fight to conclude the OKU with increased job complexity coefficients and a new KLA.

"We will inform our membership and the general public about our further steps in this fight in a timely manner. We also announce that representatives of the USSCG will participate in the meeting that the Head of the European Union Delegation to Montenegro, Johan Sattler, arranged with the Minister of Labor, Employment and Social Dialogue, Naida Nišić, which will be held on July 16, and which will be attended by representatives of all social partners," it was announced.