The ETUC’s Croatian affiliate the SSSH/UATUC has been successful in getting the minimum wage increased and removing allowances (e.g. for overtime, night work, holiday work etc) from the calculation of the minimum wage rate. But the fight goes on for fairer pay for Croatian workers.
The union’s demand was a rise in the minimum wage to 50% of the average gross monthly wage (progressively: this year 45%, and next 50%), and that this increase and compensation measures for employers would not be to the detriment of workers and public services.
A draft law put forward in early December partly incorporated the union demands, excluding allowances – but only those provided by law. The government did not exclude the allowance for strenuous working conditions and allowances agreed in extended collective agreements. The rise in the minimum wage amounted only to 43% of average salary.
A particular problem for the SSSH/UATUC was the so-called compensation measures for employers in the form of a fiscal stimulus, which in reality rewards employers for keeping workers on the minimum wage and harms social security, depriving health care systems alone of 221 million kuna (€29.3 million). It means the payments employers need to make for health care insurance and other contributions are cut by half – they pay contributions only on half a wage.
Unfortunately, the parliament rejected all the three of the amendments that the union submitted.
“Apart from certain positive developments, the proposed solution regarding the amount of the minimum wage and compensation measures for employers is not acceptable and is not a good way forward,” commented SSSH President Mladen Novosel. “In this way the government is rewarding all the employers who keep workers on a minimum wage, encouraging them to do that, and other employers to do the same. We expected a redistribution to the benefit of workers and not only employers. Unfortunately, yet again we have a model which takes money out of public pockets and puts it into private ones. The UATUC demands a comprehensive solution and wage policy, and a strengthening of the collective bargaining system. The government needs to play the role of safeguard and promoter of collective bargaining at all levels. Croatia needs to become a country which cares for all its citizens, not only employers and entrepreneurs.”
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