Skopje, 28 March 2025 (MIA) - The unions are set to stage a protest in Skopje on April 2 following the Government’s unilateral decision to increase the net minimum wage by Mden 1.800 (EUR 30) said the head of the Federation of Trade Unions of Macedonia (SSM), Slobodan Trendafilov, on Friday, noting that the decision would be illegitimate without a previous opinion by the Economic and Social Council.

“As we promised a month ago, SSM will take to the streets on April 2. The last nail was the Government’s decision to unilaterally adopt a report and determine the minimum wage with a report to the detriment of the workers in Macedonia, not accepting their proposals for the minimum wage,” Trendafilov said.

Trendafilov also highlighted the lack of dialogue about wages in the public sector, which, he said, is required by the general collective agreement.

He said there have been increased attacks on the unions and the federation by a political party and appointed officials.

“There have been heightened attacks on us both by a political party and by politically appointed directors who are being paid with our taxes. We aren’t paying them to obstruct processes so they can reduce our wages and avoid meeting the demands of the workers, or to threaten us with layoffs, wage reductions and suspensions of our union activists with the sole goal of making some other union the representative union to the detriment of the workers,” Trendafilov added.

The union leader noted that at its previous press conference, SSM called for negotiations to be held about the minimum wage by the last working day of March.

“Instead we heard that the Government has adopted a report, and for the first time since the adoption of the Law on Minimum Wage in 2012, it unilaterally made a decision about the fate of the workers, without including the unions, i.e., the workers, nor the employers who maybe had a different opinion,” Trendafilov said.

At a press conference at the beginning of March, SSM called for the national net minimum wage to be increased by Mden 6.000 (EUR 97) in addition to the mandatory March alignment that is set to up the minimum wage by Mden 1.800 (EUR 30).

As part of its proposal for the increase of the minimum wage, SSM called for private sector employers to be exempted from paying social contribution for a year, or for the contributions to be subsidized by the state.

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