Skopje, 1 October 2024 (MIA) - The Federation of Trade Unions of Macedonia (SSM) does not want to comment on the Government's 100 days in office, and hopes that a session of the Economic and Social Council will be convened to discuss what has been done so far, while the Organization of Employers of Macedonia said they had high expectations, but nothing has been done so far. The two social partners expect that the Government will soon convene a session of the Economic and Social Council.

According to SSM leader Slobodan Trendafilov, the unions should have been called by the Government by now to discuss all the important issues affecting the workers.

"We believe that the arguments favour the workers. Our arguments are sound, a single minimum wage is not enough to cover food and beverage costs. If they expect us to understand them, we believe that first they need to understand us," Trendafilov said ahead of Tuesday's conference on social dialogue, organized by SSM and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES). 

The Organization of Employers of Macedonia said they expected the Government to show understanding for the problems they face such as increasing productivity, lack of workforce and infrastructure. 

"We had very high expectations, but we got next to nothing. We expected that this Government would have understanding for the business, for all the crises we are facing, but the focus in the past period was only on increasing public administration wages, taking loans for the municipalities, bypassing the problems the economy is facing in the area of ​​productivity and the lack of labour which, in a word, means nothing," said head of the Organization of Employers of Macedonia, Vladanka Trajkoska. 

Employers, she pointed out, do not have any concrete information in terms of the way or the conditions under which the business sector will be able to use the money from the Hungarian loan.

"We heard it will be for some kind of investments in operation, but we cannot say anything until we have concrete information, and how the loans will be obtained," said Trajkoska. 

Today's conference dedicated to the situation and perspectives of the social dialogue, which was initiated by SSM, brought together all social partners including unions, employers and government representatives. 

Photo: print screen