The Social Council will discuss the General Collective Agreement at its session on Monday, as well as the request of the Union of Free Trade Unions to increase the salaries of public administration employees by 10 percent.
Minister of Labor Naida Nišić, appearing on TV Vijesti's Boje jutra, stressed that the outcome of the social partners' talks on Monday cannot be predicted, but stressed that the Government's position is that separating the private from the public sector in terms of wages cannot be a practice.
"The position of the Government, or rather my position, primarily as a minister who will attend that session, is that we need to sit down, to definitely take a closer look at all these demands, but separating the private sector from the public sector cannot be a practice because then we passivize all employees. We demotivate the private sector, and we all know very well that we all live off the private sector and that for years there has been talk about how the state has become a major competitor to private employers, so in that sense, corrections and negotiations of the general collective agreement continue, will intensify, and in which direction we will ultimately go and how we will reach an agreement, that is something that we absolutely cannot say before the agreement itself," said Nišić.
She pointed out that social partners should finally decide on the issue of Sundays off in shops, and the introduction of a seven-hour working day, which the minister expects to be included in the Labor Law next year, also depends on their agreements.
The Law on Permanent Seasonal Workers is expected to be adopted by the end of the year.
"The Law on Permanent Seasonal Workers also provides for extended pension and disability insurance, and in addition, there is one good news that we have woven into the law itself, which is that beneficiaries of family financial security will be able to start working as permanent seasonal workers, without it affecting their use of family financial security for the first year, in order to truly empower them and include them in the labor market," she pointed out.
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