We are degraded and humiliated and we are ready to seek our rights before the court in Strasbourg.
This was told to "Vijesti" by firefighters from the state-owned company "Luka Bar", after the competent institutions said that it was not possible to adopt their request to retire early. That is why they also addressed the Prime Minister Milojko Spajić.
Firefighters-rescuers of the "Port of Bar", as "Vijesti" wrote last month, are asking the competent institutions to enable them to subsequently apply the benefit of working years, which is calculated from 2024, because they submitted an initiative for this back in 2013, but it was rejected, as they claim, for unfounded reasons, only to be adopted two years ago exactly as they proposed it more than a decade ago.
After the Ministry of Social Welfare, Family Care and Demography and the Pension and Disability Insurance Fund (PIO) responded to journalists' questions, it follows that their request cannot and will not be adopted, while the "Port of Bar" Protection and Rescue Service says that they will not give up on their request and that they are ready for more radical measures.
They were further encouraged by the results of a routine annual examination by an occupational medicine specialist, which they received earlier this week and showed that three employees, out of eight who would be eligible for retirement if this initiative were adopted, are not capable of the work they do.
Their commander Goran Pechurica he said that the response is from the ministry headed by Damir Gutic unacceptable for them. Gutić's cabinet previously said that the regulations cannot be applied retroactively, and Pečurica clarified that they are not seeking retroactive application, since they started doing this work in the 1990s, but rather since 2013, when they submitted all the necessary documentation to exercise the right to preferential work experience.
Due to the attitude of the ministry and the Pension and Disability Insurance Fund towards them, they have contacted the office of Prime Minister Milojko Spajić and, as they stated, are waiting for an invitation to a meeting. They will present to him, as Pečurica said, that all that is needed is the goodwill of those in charge to solve the problem that is a matter of life for them.
"We are not asking for retroactive application, because that would mean benefits for the last 30 years we have been working in this service. We are asking that our request from 2013, which was unlawfully and untruthfully denied, be honored," claims Pečurica, raising the question of whether any of the employees in the competent institutions will be held accountable for this omission.
He says he stopped believing in law and justice a long time ago, adding that citizens find it unbelievable that a firefighter-rescuer does not have a long service record, but he believes that this is not strange in Montenegro.
He particularly points out that all recent medical examinations have shown that most of them have health problems, and three of them have been shown to be no longer capable of performing their jobs. He is not surprised by this, he stressed, because these are people who have spent over 30 years in that service doing the most difficult and demanding jobs.
Pečurica emphasized that this creates an additional problem because they can no longer work in the fire department, but they have nowhere else to go since they have spent several decades in those jobs.
"If there were luck, knowledge, and just laws," he says, they could retire, but because of this attitude of those in charge, they will either have to be assigned to lower-paid jobs or, simply, be laid off as redundant.
The results arrived earlier this week, and he is awaiting results for more employees, after which he will officially inform the company's director of the outcome and "see what he will do with those people."
Heroes only when they are on fire
"Instead of people who have given their lives and health to this service retiring, they will be left without a job because they will have nowhere to work," said Pečurica and called on the authorities, led by Prime Minister Spajić, to reconsider the decision that makes life difficult for people who have spent their lives and working lives in a state-owned company.
In an interview with "Vijesti", he and his associates emphasized that the competent authorities, both state and local, remember them during the fire season when they risk their lives to contain the raging fire, send their gratitude and call them "heroes", but close the door to them in the fight for a dignified old age.
Pečurica notes that they are the first to jump in to help the municipal firefighters, but also their colleagues from all over the coast. This was the situation last summer when there was a fire throughout the Bar municipality, and they will do the same, if necessary, this fire season.
"Even though we only have two trucks, we go to the fire at the first call, to help our colleagues whenever and wherever they need it. However, we do not have the same rights as them, even though we do not work for a private company but for a state-owned company. It turns out that we are below them, second-class workers," one of the firefighters told the newspaper.
All of this, they claim, creates a feeling of humiliation and degradation on the part of the state and civil servants whom they pay as citizens, especially since for decades they have contributed to the development of the "Port of Bar", which is the economic and trade gateway to Montenegro.
Documentation in a drawer?
The Regulation amending the Regulation on determining jobs, i.e. jobs for which the insurance period is calculated with an increased duration, and on the procedure and method for determining them from November 2024, added a new job position "firefighter-rescuer with an increased degree: 12 months is calculated as 16 months" to Port Transport.
Pečurica said that back in 2013, the Trade Union "Luke Bar" submitted an initiative for preferential calculation of length of service to the Pension Fund and the then Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare.
Then, as he states, they were informed by the Pension and Disability Insurance Fund that they had to obtain professional documentation to determine jobs, or jobs for which the insurance period is calculated with an increased duration.
For this, at the recommendation of employees of the Pension and Disability Insurance Fund, they hired the Institute for Quality of Work and Living Environment "1. maj" from Niš and submitted the study to the Fund and the competent ministry. They provided a similar document back in 2011 for the needs of the court process - they sued an unidentified person at "Luka Bar" because their beneficial work experience was not recognized at that time.
The "Sigurnost" Institute for Occupational Safety, Fire Protection and Environmental Protection prepared a report and opinion on the expert examination in the court case. Both documents showed the same thing - the rescuers and firefighters of "Luka Bar" perform their work in danger zone one and have the conditions for acquiring the right to benefit from the length of service.
In June 2013, a response was received from the Ministry, signed by the then Assistant Minister Jovo Popović, which "Vijesti" has access to, rejects their request because, in his opinion, such an initiative can be submitted by the employer "and the trade union organization is not authorized to submit it".
Article four of the Regulations states that the procedure for determining job vacancies can be initiated by the Pension and Disability Insurance Fund, ex officio or at the initiative of the trade union.
Precisely for this reason, Pečurica believes that they have been deprived of the right to calculate their service with benefits, because they obtained all the necessary documentation, which they paid for themselves and from the Union's budget, and delivered it to the relevant addresses, but it was never acted upon. He also asks in which country would the documentation be in the archives for 13 years without being acted upon ex officio?
"So, two years ago, what we, legally and correctly, proposed back in 2011 and 2013, came into effect. If the authorities had done what was needed back then, for the benefit of workers, we would have been credited with more years of beneficial work experience than the last ten years," he said.
He emphasized that the management of the Port of Bar had addressed the authorities with this request back in 2010, but that process never reached its conclusion. Ilija Pješčić, the current director of the Port, according to the firefighters, gave them his support and said that the company was ready to settle their financial obligations towards them in order to achieve the benefit of their working years.
Ministry: It cannot be retroactive
The government department headed by Gutić previously told "Vijesti" that the ministry does not have the authority to enable the retroactive application of benefit-based work experience or to act outside of applicable regulations, as this would be contrary to the law and constitutional principles. It also does not have the authority to order the retroactive application of regulations or to influence individual decisions.
The position of "firefighter-rescuer" in port transport was not covered by the Rulebook until its amendments in November 2024, when it was normatively recognized for the first time with a degree of increase in seniority (12 months is counted as 16).
"Regarding retroactive application, we would like to remind you that the Constitution of Montenegro prescribes the principle of non-retroactivity, i.e. that regulations apply from the date of entry into force, unless otherwise specified in exceptional circumstances. In this specific case, such an exception is not provided for, and there is no legal basis for retroactive recognition of the benefit period for the previous period," said the Ministry of Social Welfare, Family Care and Demography.
See more:
Download the app and follow the news
FOLLOW US ON
