SBASK: Pay raise for 4 %, government's insulting decision

This would suggest a salary of the educational worker being 118 euros more.

That they will not give up their demands, says the chairman of the SBASK, Nundman Jashar.

Our request was that the decision was made under the BSPK so that it would be 4 per cent after that much hit, but that it would be 4 per cent of the prime minister's salary value. Let's get out of here, even with that pay he's got once, whether the current salary is fairly modest, 4 percent from such a salary and here we stand and I'm saying any other change in wage demand will be unique to all trade unions that are part of the BSPK. But what I'm saying is we're going to keep insisting and we're going to have union action, because we don't accept a 4.6 per cent lift I'm saying is too small”, he said.

The SBASK days ago held a meeting of union leaders within municipalities, where they have been asked that in schools they run to offer teachers the form for going on strike in case they fail to meet their demands.

Of course, I said I wish all sectors would keep their word and be unique otherwise, I will then act only as SBASK, Kosovo's education unions and listen to the voice of teachers. When there's gonna be strike and union movement I can't say today, not that I don't want to, but we're waiting for the forms because teachers can declare themselves pro, but they have the right to declare themselves against it. So, I guarantee that I will be their voice and what we establish the membership of the SBASK, that we will do, that we have not been excluded from union action, that is, strike”, he stressed.

The request presented in forms is, among other things, the implementation of the Health Insurance Law, which the Assembly of Kosovo approved in 2014.

Meanwhile, Kosovo Prime Minister Haki Shatri's adviser, for Kosova Preis, has said that the volume of budgetary means for wages is meant to be larger for 4 per cent, compared to 2017, and that is not growth. This, according to him, is an indication of economic growth.

As for the SBASK ultimatum, Shatri has said such a demand does not respond to the economic situation in Kosovo.

“We are a state of democratic organisation, trade unions are allowed, union activity by law is allowed, labour relations are also regulated by contracts. An ultimatum requirement of this nature I think does not respond to the economic situation and the situation in Kosovo. I'm not saying that they don't need those people after the larger wages, but if they compare salaries to countries in the region, I don't think they're staying bad, they're not comparing them right now, but they're not bad. The need is certainly for more of the” income, Shatri stressed.

Days earlier, the country's prime minister, Ramush Haradinaj, had met with a BSPK delegation, including SBASK Chairman Nundman Jashari, where according to the communiqué issued by the prime minister's office reportedly he had promised he would be in continued dialogue and that their demands will be addressed with maximum care, conform budgetary capacities. /Periscopi/