Trade union: We will consider initiatives for a strike, if wages in prosecutor's offices are not increased

The trade union organization of the State Prosecutor's Office announced that, if the salaries of the employees in the prosecutor's organization remain at the current level, without increasing the coefficients, they will consider all initiatives, in cooperation with other judicial bodies, in connection with organizing a strike.

They say that the employees of the prosecutor's office have been facing the problem of low wages for a long time in all positions, both official and prosecutorial.

"We point out that for a certain period the Rulebook on job complexity coefficients for employees in the judiciary and the state prosecutor's office assigned to jobs from job group D, by which the salary of civil servants and employees in the judiciary was increased by a certain number of coefficients, precisely because of the complexity, responsibilities and volume of work performed by employees in the prosecutor's organization. All this has led to the fact that civil servants and employees in the prosecutor's organization have the same salaries as other employees in the state and private sector, for the incomparably more complex and responsible work they perform that even after the announced salary increase, the majority of civil servants and employees in state prosecutor's offices will earn a minimum salary in the amount of 600,00 euros. all occupations that exist in the state do not require the same importance, expediency and responsibility," reads the statement signed by the president of the Trade Union Organization of State Prosecutors' Offices, Nemanja Bulatović, and the president of the Legal Team, Almin Hodžić.

They say that "extremely low salaries" are also earned by state prosecutors, whose coefficient today is lower on average by three to four calculation values ​​compared to the coefficients they had in 2016. So today, as they said, the basic salary of a beginner prosecutor is around 1.150 euros, while the volume of work performed by state prosecutors due to the lack of staff at all levels is incomparably greater compared to the period from 2016.

"Such low salaries of state prosecutors have a demotivating effect and make this profession unattractive for potential candidates, which results in less and less interest in applying for state prosecutor competitions. As a consequence, most prosecutor's offices in Montenegro face a lack of personnel capacity. This situation does not not only complicates the daily functioning of the prosecutor's office, but seriously threatens the quality and efficiency of the work. Overloading the existing staff, caused by the lack of new prosecutors, can lead to the dysfunctionality of the entire judicial system in the long term. summer season, with full respect for that occupation," the announcement reads.

They say that the material position of the employees in the prosecutor's organization is made even more difficult by not signing the Collective Agreement with the employer, the signing of which, they remind, was "initiated years ago by the Trade Union Organization of State Prosecutors' Offices, and which, among other things, is intended to "regulate the disputed calculation of readiness" during from 22 p.m. to XNUMX a.m., on weekends and national and religious holidays.