Employees of the Health Insurance Fund (FZO) are dissatisfied with the working group's decision not to include their union in the Sectoral Collective Agreement (GKU) for the healthcare sector, even though they claim they are in an extremely difficult situation compared to their colleagues from public healthcare institutions.
"They are unfairly neglected and their work is insufficiently valued in relation to the complexity of the tasks they perform, which are crucial for the functioning of the health system, because the Fund is one of the most important institutions not only in the health system, but also in the state of Montenegro, which ensures the exercise of rights from health care and health insurance," said the president of the Trade Union Organization of the Health Insurance Fund (FZO). Amer Ramusovic "News".
He recalls that the FZO Trade Union was founded in 2004, from which time it was continuously a member of the Independent Trade Union until 2014. That year, the FZO became part of the system of civil servants and employees, after which the collective agreement signed with the institution's Trade Union ceased to be valid, which led to a drastic reduction in employees' salaries.
"Currently, the GKU coefficients for the field of administration and justice are applied to the salaries of employees in the Health Insurance Fund from category "D" (expert-managerial, expert and executive staff), to which the majority of employees belong, even though employees have been paying funds from their salaries into the sectoral Independent Health Union (which is a contracting party to the new GKU for the health sector and to which numerous public health institutions belong) for more than two decades," explains Ramusović.
This is why, he claims, there is a huge difference in the salaries of employees within the same branch union.
"So, for example, a lawyer in a health center has a coefficient of 11.91, and a lawyer in the Fund has 9.60, in which way the employees in our institution are extremely discriminated against. These are non-medical staff with the same education and in the same public health system," Ramusović pointed out.
214 employees unfairly neglected
There are numerous arguments for including HIF employees in the GKU for healthcare activities, claims Ramusović.
"Article 2 of the Sectoral Collective Agreement for Administration and Judiciary states that the provisions of this agreement apply to employees in ministries, administrative bodies, services of the President, Parliament, Government and Constitutional Court, courts, prosecutor's office, Judicial Council, Prosecutor's Council, local self-government bodies, local government bodies and services, funds, institutes, agencies, commissions, public institutions and institutions founded by the state or local self-government, and to which the provisions of another sectoral collective agreement do not directly apply, so there is no obstacle for employees in the Health Insurance Fund to be subject to another sectoral collective agreement, which is the one for healthcare, to which we have otherwise belonged for decades and this is the only such case known to us of someone belonging to one sectoral collective agreement, while the provisions of another agreement apply to them," Ramusović pointed out.
International practice shows that in some developed countries, sectoral collective agreements for healthcare also cover employees in health funds, at least in terms of basic rights, such as salary, working hours, vacations and social protection, says Ramusović.
He said that the provisions of the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees still apply to employees of the Health Insurance Fund, because the coefficients, or salaries that they want to adjust, are regulated by another legal regulation, the provisions of which do not have to be changed in order to achieve an increase.
"That legal regulation is the current Law on Salaries of Public Sector Employees, which in Article 22 provides that the coefficients for salaries for "D" category employees are determined by the sectoral collective agreement (it is not specified or limited by which one)," said Ramusović.
He explained that according to the Law on State Administration, the Health Insurance Fund is not a state administration body, but rather a holder of public authority to which certain state administration tasks have been transferred, therefore, a specific public institution.
"Every health service (contracted health service providers, which include all public health institutions and most private health institutions) has its legal, IT and financial beginning, course and end precisely in the Health Insurance Fund, and the entire aforementioned work amounts to 214 employees, distributed throughout all cities of Montenegro," Ramusović pointed out.
Because of all of the above, the Health Insurance Fund believes that employees are unfairly neglected and their work is insufficiently valued in relation to the complexity of the tasks they perform, which are crucial for the functioning of the healthcare system, especially considering the salaries of non-medical staff in healthcare institutions, whose work they direct and control.
Apply the model from Italy and Spain
Ramusović reminds that the Health Insurance Fund is one of the most important institutions not only in the healthcare system, but also in the state, and its budget of over 500 million finances the healthcare of all citizens, all of whom are, for some reason (illness, pregnancy, injury, accident at work, etc.) the subject of work through the daily activities of 25 regional units throughout Montenegro, which amounts to over 300.000 clients annually, as well as a large number of foreign citizens.
He pointed out that international practice also shows that in some developed countries, sectoral collective agreements for healthcare also cover employees in health funds, at least in terms of basic rights, such as salary, working hours, vacations, and social security.
"This is the case specifically in Italy and Spain, while regulations in Germany do not exclude such a possibility. This approach is more common in countries where the health fund is part of a wider system of public health and social protection (and such is the health fund in Montenegro), and in this context it is important to provide a certain minimum of rights for all employees in that sector, including administrative workers," he said.
He pointed out that health funds are often part of the public health system (as is the case in our country), so it is often logical that the basic rights of employees in these funds be covered by the sectoral collective agreement for health, while in many cases, as is the case in Montenegro, administrative workers in health funds perform tasks that are crucial for the functioning of the entire system - for example, the Fund maintains an integral health information system.
"For the entry of the Trade Union Organization, it was necessary to add in Article 2 of the GKU for the healthcare sector that the provisions of the new GKU, among others, also apply to employees of the Health Insurance Fund, and then, through groups and subgroups of jobs, the titles and coefficients of employees should have been added or they should have been equated in some other way with the coefficients of non-medical staff in public healthcare institutions."
They did nothing to retain the staff.
The trade union organization of the Health Insurance Fund (FZO) indicates that the Fund's entry into the Health Insurance General Fund would significantly motivate all employees, but they also note that until the recent arrival of the new management, nothing has been done to improve the material and financial situation, through increasing salaries and equalizing coefficients. They believe that there has been no response, especially from the Ministry of Finance, to change anything in that direction, but they also believe that they now have the support of both the director and the Board of Directors of the Health Insurance Fund.
“Director Aleksandar Ruzic recently accepted to attend a session of the Executive Board of the Trade Union Organization, which was also attended by Dr., in order to resolve and find a solution for the necessary increase in salaries of employees of the Health Insurance Fund. Mihailo Babović, president of the Independent Health Care Union, at which members of the leadership of the Union presented all the arguments they had stated in their written address, but unfortunately the Union of the Health Insurance Fund, due to the short deadline for signing the GKU, or rather the specific date (because it was the end of the year), was not included in the new GKU for the health care sector, although the Independent Health Care Union has been supporting our initiatives for the application of the GKU for the health care sector to employees of the Health Insurance Fund for years.
The Health Insurance Fund Trade Union Organization said that, if no change occurs, there may be a further outflow of diverse, but much-needed staff from that institution, which has been ongoing since 2014.
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