Employment

Parliament debates amendments to Labor Law

BELGRADE -- The draft amendments to the Serbian Labor Law, adopted by the government on Saturday, are now debated by deputies in the national assembly.

The contentious amendments are opposed by the country's largest trade unions.

BELGRADE – The draft amendments to the Serbian Labour Law, which will be presented before the members of the Serbian parliament on Tuesday and whose adoption is being opposed to by representative trade unions, provide that employees’ right to seniority-based financial compensation of 0.4 percent per year of service can only be exercised with their current employer.

BELGRADE - The Serbian parliament will discuss at its Tuesday session the bill of amendments to the labour law which the government adopted on Saturday despite the pressures and protests of trade unions.

The union representing employees of Hellenic Post (ELTA) who are based in Attica on Friday called a 24-hour strike next Wednesday, protesting under-staffing and demanding the immediate recruitment of additional workers for the summer period.

Unionists threatened to continue with a four-day strike, from August 11 through 14, if their demands are not met.

Almost three years after legislation was passed to create a unified pay structure in the public sector, many discrepancies still exist in the salaries civil servants receive.

In October 2011 the government approved a law introducing an across-the-board wage system with the aim of reducing salary costs and eliminating numerous inequalities.

The Government has the financial resources to increase the minimum pension to 400 lei in 2015, Prime Minister Victor Ponta announced on Thursday.

He mentioned two categories of retirees whose pensions should be increased — the court clerks, and the aircrews.

As many as 130,000 commercial enterprises shut down during Greece’s six-year economic recession while no more than 45,000 new ones opened, which translates into a net loss of some 85,000 businesses.

At the same time an estimated 575,000 small and medium-sized enterprises were forced to stop operating, while 265,000 new ones were started.

A level of $14 per day, especially if the other family members of the workers do not have any other income, is highly inadequate for laborers, who work for a minimum wage, to maintain their physical being On July 1, Turkey’s minimum wage will be “updated.” For a single worker without any children, it will be net 891 Turkish Liras monthly, which is approximately 306 euros or $414.

The Serbian Labour Ministry has called for the Social-Economic Council, which is made up of representatives of employers, unions and government, to meet next week in order to discuss the draft labour law, a ministry source told BIRN. 

This will come instead of a public discussion on the long-awaited legislation before it can be sent for adoption by parliament in July.

By Christina Kopsini

The Greek social security system is a ticking time bomb. Excluding the seamen’s and farmers’ pension funds (NAT and OGA respectively), the reserves of the rest don’t even top 4.5 billion euros, which is not enough to fund pensions after 2016, when the problem will explode.