PRESS CONFERENCE OF CCM REGARDING THE PAYMENT OF MINIMUM WAGE

03/13/2014

President Mitrevski on today’s press conference

Today in the Federation of Trade Unions of Macedonia a press conference regarding the Law on minimum wage was held which was attended by the President of CCM, PhD Zivko Mitrevski, Angjelko Angjelkovski, General Secretary of the Council of CCM and President of the Union of Workers in Textile, Leather and Shoe Industry, (STKC), Pavle Trendafilov, Vice President of the Council of CCM for the private sector and President of the Union of Construction, Industry and Planning of Macedonia (SGIP) and Robert Simonoski, Vice President of the Council of CCM for organizational development and President of the Independent Trade Union of Energy and Economy of Macedonia (SSESM).

The President of CCM, PhD Zivko Mitrevski has noted that the Federation of Trade Unions of Macedonia and the branch unions affiliated to CCM closely monitor the situation regarding the implementation of the minimum wage law and as it was reported, the increase in the minimum wage in March amounted to 9.32 %, which means 3 times the increase of rising of the living costs, i.e. in amount of 8.800.00 MKD. Given that before the adoption of the Law on minimum wage in 2012, the amount of the minimum wage was somewhere around 4,500 to 5,500 MKD, the initial increase in the minimum wage was 78.88 % and considering that in 2014 the dynamics to increase the minimum wage by 2016, the first year the increase is 9.32 %, in 2015 the increase will be 9.590.00 MKD or an increase of 8.98 % and in 2016 the increase will be 5.11 % or 10.080 MKD, which would mean that the minimum wage in 2016 will be higher for 25.22 % of the current minimum wage.

Also the minimum wage in the sectors textile, leather and shoes, according to the increase in 2016 will be 31.21 % of the current or in 2018 higher for a total of 46.96 % of the salary in 2013. The increase in salary from 2012 to 2016 will amount to 25.22 %.

The President Mitrevski has emphasized that CCM together with the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy and union activists have agreed to alert when a violation of the implementation of the minimum wage law has been made. It is necessary workers to be unionized in enterprises where unions are not established as quickly as possible in order unions to act in a legitimate manner, every worker in the country to receive the minimum wage guaranteed by the law.

Also CCM closely monitors the situation and has regular discussions with employers as well as points out to the penalties provided under the Act for violation of the minimum wage and in accordance with Article 7 of this law fines of 6,000 to 7,000 EUR in MKD currency have been envisaged for the employer if the employer does not pay minimum wage established by law and 3,000 to 4,000 EUR for the person responsible for the payment of the minimum wage.

Given the fact that the minimum wage is determined together with the social partners, the Government and employers, we deem that there will be no problems regarding the payment of wages; this means that we have an improvement of the economic and social position of more than 65,000 workers and before the adoption of the Law on minimum wage we had a serious problem with more than 80,000 workers who received salary up to 5,500 MKD so the benefit of increasing the minimum wage in 2014 will cover around 65,000 workers.