The salaries of police officers for March and April will be additionally increased by five percent each, the Trade Union of the Police Administration announced.
They said that this was agreed upon at a meeting of the delegations of the trade unions of the Police Administration and the Ministry of Internal Affairs with the Minister of Finance Aleksandar Damjanović and his associates.
The reason for organizing the meeting was, as they say, reaching an agreement regarding the "expected additional salary increase" of police officers and the signing of a collective agreement.
"Those present agreed that the joint work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Trade Union of the Police Administration and the Ministry of Finance contributed to increasing the coefficients of police officers by 20 percent, which was adopted at the Government session on December 31.12.2022, XNUMX. The regulation on increasing the coefficients is already being applied, and the results are reflected in a significant increase in wages and other wage allowances (overtime work, night work, holiday hours and others)," the announcement states.
They remind that on December 30, the Government adopted a decision on a 20 percent salary supplement for certain workplaces, which also applies to police officers.
"As this decision was adopted after the adoption of the Budget for 2023, the problem of lack of funds in the budget of the MUP in the 'position' for the salaries of police officers appears. In order to start implementing this decision, it was necessary to determine the final impact of spending the funds after increasing the coefficients. It was determined that the application of the decision would mean a lack of funds for the payment of employees' salaries after September, and it is necessary to allocate additional funds for this purpose," the statement added.
The Trade Union of the Police Administration states that Damjanović expressed his willingness to help "to the greatest extent possible to overcome the problem" in such a way that the Ministry of Finance will provide additional funds.
"According to the above, an agreement was reached that the salaries of police officers for the months of March and April 2023 will be additionally increased by five percent each. This means that the basic salary in March will be increased by 15 percent, and the basic salary for April will be increased by decides 20 percent. In addition to the above, there is a possibility in the coming period for an additional increase, which will depend on the spending of funds from the budget," the announcement reads.
The date of signing the collective agreement was also discussed at the meeting, and an agreement was reached to submit a new text of the collective agreement next week, because the existing text must be harmonized with some provisions of the General Collective Agreement and the Collective Agreement for the Administration and Judiciary, according to the union, saying to leave a deadline of 15 days "to make corrections to the text in order to sign it".
"On this occasion, the Trade Union of the Police Administration informs its members and all police officers that in the coming period we will continue with trade union activities in order to improve the material situation and protect their rights," the announcement concludes.
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