Trade unions in Slovenia have agreed to combine their efforts to achieve higher wages and a fair wage system.
Industrial trade unions affiliated to the Association of Free Trade Unions of Slovenia, have formed a coordination group to pursue negotiations, and to work jointly with private sector trade unions facing the same challenges in securing better pay.
The partners include trade unions across a wide range of sectors including the chemical, rubber, metal and wood industries, construction, energy, textile and leather, and agriculture and food, together with retail, transport and telecommunications, catering and tourism, and financial services.
On 24 January, the unions signed a letter of intent, agreeing on joint action on wages and working hours. The campaign got underway with a conference of the private sector trade unions in February, calling for Fair pay and an 8-hour working day, and supporting the ETUC #OurPayRise campaign.
Participants heard that while productivity is on the rise, along with profits and GDP, workers are under increasing pressure and salaries are not following the upward trend. In other words, people are working more and more, but are getting paid nearly the same. It is high time this changed.
Currently, social dialogue between employers and trade unions in the private sector hardly deserves to be called a dialogue any more. The employers’ associations no longer wish to enter negotiations except on lowering agreed standards.
The unions’ first objective is to raise minimum basic wages to reflect the actual situation in economy and International Labour Organization recommendations, and not depend solely on the will of individual employers. They agreed to present employers with a unified negotiating position, and to take further action if no positive response is forthcoming.
Photo: Lidija Jerkic, president of the Trade Union of Metal and Electro Industry of Slovenia, addresses the conference.
