Money (BetaPhoto/Milos Miskov)
Representatives of Serbia’s Ministry of Finance, employers and trade unions ended on Aug. 21 the talks expected to increase the 2023-2024 minimum wage, but with no success.
“We haven’t given up our request that before we discuss raising the minimum wage for 2024, we should finish the talks on a correction for this year, as inflation rates are very high. The minimum cost of Serbia’s basket of goods was RSD52,000 in May, and this year’s minimum wage is RSD40,000,” a representative of the United Professional Trade Unions “Independence”, Zoran Ristic, said for BETA.
Ristic added that the Labor Act provided that the minimum wage could be corrected twice a year if market turbulence occurred, including a high inflation rate, and that the representative trade unions suggested that the minimum wage should be increased by at least 10 percent to protect workers’ purchasing power.
The trade unions want the finance ministry to explain why it is impossible to raise the minimum wage by the end of the year, insisting that they receive a reply in writing. If not pleased with the answer, the trade union will decide whether to switch to one of the forms of industrial action on Aug. 25, when the talks are expected to continue, Ristic explained.
A representative of the Serbian Union of Employers, Nebojsa Atanackovic, said that business owners, if an agreement was reached to increase the minimum wage for 2003 and 2024, expected the state to increase the non-taxable part of the wage, so that the state, too, should bear the burden, not only the employers.
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