Official consumer basket an attempt to minimize unions, avoid wage increase: SSM president
Skopje, 3 February 2025 (MIA) - The Federation of Trade Unions of Macedonia (SSM) will continue to calculate the minimum consumer basket, whereas the official consumer basket is an attempt to minimize unions and to avoid a wage increase, said SSM president Slobodan Trendafilov after a session of the Economic-Social Council on Monday.
Trendafilov said the Government believed it would be good to have an independent body that offered various calculations, hoping it would serve as a more relevant indicator than what the SSM does.
Asked if SSM would take part in this independent body, the SSM president said this would be discussed, although head of the employers’ organization Vladanka Trajkovska said earlier that unions would take part.
"SSM will continue to calculate the minimum wage that has shown to be a relevant indicator. What SSM has been doing since 2010 was and will be criticized by all governments, but if they try to prove that we can survive with far less, maybe we would have to calculate an average consumer basket that will reflect the real and not minimum needs, but the Government and employers will not like this," said Trendafilov.
According to him, SSM, like all other unions in the region and Europe, calculates such baskets in order to demonstrate the direction of the government and employers' policies regarding wage levels.
"The official basket will probably serve as a coordinated attack and they will try to silence us in the coming period. Everyone attending today's ESC tried to find some mistakes but they failed," said Trendafilov.
He said SSM remained on its position that wages must be increased now, while adding that workers do not have as many differences with the executive and the employers as they do with certain unionists.
"Some unionists tried to convince us today that maybe the minimum wage should not increase because it would put pressure on other wages. They also criticized our consumer basket and supported third parties in deciding what's best for workers and citizens," said Trendafilov.
Photo: MIA
