Commenting on the fact that the social partners have not reached an agreement on a general collective agreement, Keković pointed out that the situation is very complex for both the union and the hundred thousand employees in Montenegro because we do not have a general collective agreement in force.
"This is something that caught us by surprise. I will remind the Montenegrin public that in the second half of December, the Union of Free Trade Unions, together with the Union of Employers of Montenegro as a social partner and colleagues from another trade union center, sent a letter to the Minister of Finance, that is, the Government, where we sent our agreement in principle that the calculation value of the coefficient, which has not been changed for 14 years, should increase from 90 euros gross to 100 from January this year, and where we also requested the conclusion of a new general collective agreement. We have internally agreed to increase the coefficients of job complexity for the real sector," he said.
Keković: Internally agreed increase in job complexity coefficients for the real sector
Keković points out that there was then some delay and that the Prime Minister and his associates requested that these talks be postponed until mid-January, and that he was asking for time.
"A series of talks began, where we had five talks, each time the next talk was supposed to be for them to tell us their position on it, somehow that position was slipping away. At the end of March, the agreed meeting did not even take place for 20 days, we announced a protest that was supposed to be on April 1st, we postponed that protest, because the next day after the press announcement we received an invitation from the Prime Minister, we went to that talk and were convinced at the end of March that there would really be a final agreement because the government had been convincing us all along that it was in favor of increasing wages. That they were aware that at the moment we are entering the European Union and we already have a huge departure of the workforce, a brain drain, or rather, the departure of young people, that the standard must be increased, it's just that they had their own way of how it should be done," said Keković.
Keković states that they have asked the Government for fifteen days to talk to employers in order to convince them to increase the coefficients even further.
"We said, okay, if you can. There was talk that they would give them some benefits. I didn't go into that part of the benefits, that's part of another story, and a meeting was arranged for April 17th. A week before April 17th, we learned that there had been no talks with the employers by the Prime Minister, we asked for the exact time of the meeting so that our negotiating team could prepare to be there on the 17th, and we learned on the 17th, or rather, the day before, that there was no meeting, and we learned that on that day the Prime Minister was in Rožaje, in a relaxed atmosphere. He didn't even give us an answer as to why there was no meeting, and after that we concluded that he was sending us a message that he didn't see us on the map of this world at all," said Keković.
Keković: Social dialogue one of the criteria of Chapter 19
Keković emphasizes that social dialogue is one of the criteria of Chapter 19 – which is also required by the European Union.
"The key foundation for it is social dialogue. Instead of showing that this social dialogue is getting stronger, you can conclude from this story that we are not worthy of a response, and, of course, the result of that was this protest, which was the first in a series, and obviously, it will be so. We are afraid that the call to reason from the Government to proceed with concluding a general collective agreement and fulfilling this request and this goal that we set together with the social partners in December, we are afraid that it will not come and we have announced that if we do not have a clear picture about this in the next fifteen days, we must seek other forms of union struggle, and this time probably more radical, in order to make the Government, which otherwise claims to be working in the interests of employees and citizens, serious, return to its starting position and prove to us that it really wants to continue doing this," said Keković.
Keković states that there are various possibilities for union struggle: a general strike, civil disobedience, blockades in cities, although no one likes it.
"It's not nice to even organize protests, let alone further radicalize them. We are trying to postpone the moment of truth that we fear will come," said Keković.
Rakočević: The private sector is taking over workers from the public sector in large numbers, enabling better salaries
President of the Administration and Judiciary Union Nenad Rakocevic emphasizes that we must look at the practical situation, not the formal one.
"It is generally known that there is a shortage of workers in Montenegro, especially in the real, or private sector. In that sense, the private sector, private companies are very challenging in terms of material conditions, or salaries in relation to workers, employees," he pointed out.
Rakočević states that the private sector is taking over workers from the public sector in large numbers, providing them with much better conditions than they have in the public sector.
"The most ordinary worker, or rather worker in supermarkets and trade, or rather service industries, does not have a salary below 700, or 750 euros. They do not have a salary lower than that, while the public administration, or rather the public sector, is endangered. We are in a position where the public administration has not had increases of twenty, thirty percent for a few years, outside of the Europe Now 1 and 2 programs, which are meaningless due to inflation, or rather, price increases. Our employees are in a very endangered status," he emphasizes.
Rakočević: The most important calculation value of the coefficient that includes all employees in public administration
Rakočević points out that the most important thing for them is the calculated value of the coefficient that includes all employees in public administration.
"We will support not only the Union but also ourselves in all activities that the Union of Trade Unions carries out," he said.
You can see more of this show "Special" on the TV Podgorica YouTube channel.
