Skopje, 20 October 2022 (MIA) – Skopje had no public transport Thursday after Public Transport Enterprise (JSP) employees staged a protest demanding payment of their September wages. The Skopje City Council will hold another emergency session at 1pm Thursday, after councilors requested that Mayor Danela Arsovska redistribute funds for JSP wages at a session Wednesday. The President of the Independent Trade Union of JSP, Afrim Mucha, stated that there will be no public transport until their September wages are paid. “We will remain in the garages until the wages are paid. All of the employees have shown up to work,” Mucha told MIA. He pointed out that the employees have gathered spontaneously due to their dissatisfaction from the managerial team as a result of the overdue wages. “The wage is five days overdue. The legal deadline stipulates that the wage be paid by the 15^th day of the month. However, all deadlines have passed, today is the 20^th day, which is why we have gathered spontaneously at four in the morning and are protesting for our wages,” said Mucha. When asked about the JSP statement which said “around twenty people from the Federation of Trade Unions (SSM) and the so-called Independent Trade Union of JSP Skopje are preventing bus drivers from regularly performing their work tasks,” that they do not have a strike board and that the “City of Skopje will file the appropriate criminal charges against the people who are obstructing the regular operations of the public enterprise and are holding Skopje and the citizens of Skopje hostage,” Mucha dismissed these claims stating that they have gathered spontaneously because, he said, they cannot work on an empty stomach. The issue of the overdue JSP wages, was a topic of discussion at the emergency session of the Skopje City Council on Wednesday, at which late in the afternoon an initiative was adopted requesting that the Mayor of Skopje submit a decision for redistribution of funds in order for the wages to be paid. The trade unions left the session on Wednesday, outraged that their demands were not met and announced they will continue their protest on Thursday and that the public transport in Skopje will not operate. ad/nn/