Not All Satisfied With New Law on Salaries in the Public Sector

But not all are rejoicing in this law. Civil Service Union of the Republic of Kosovo Chairman Mursel Zymberi told Radio Kosovo that this Law makes differences between sectors, which, according to him, the future government must change.

“I believe there will be a very big confusion here, a vague situation and if the government and the future assembly do not amend this law to improve the position of civil servants, then surely this law will become impossible to implement”, Zymber said.

Skender Bucolli, director of the Department for Public Relations at KEK, in a written response to Radio Kosovo, has said that the main defect in this law is equaling KEK workers to production with administrative staff and civil servants.

He adds that it is impossible for the current level of wage systematisation for production workers, engineers and experts in critical areas to enter within the limits that this law has defined. KEK indicated it would respect the law from the moment it goes into effect, but this would have unimaginable negative consequences on KEK's operation, as well as coal and electricity production at the national level.

Even Lamih Balaj, from the Independent Union of PTK, says the wage law has listed Telekom in a package with those companies being financed from the Kosovo budget.

“We are a competitive company in the market and we cannot be conditioned for salaries, because we work on the expert basis and consistently pursue competition in the market”, he said.

Balaj says Telekom has brought the country 500m euros and there is no way to get involved in the wage law, because Telekom is self-financer. He says they have complained to the ombudsman for this, and if something is not taken, they will be forced to launch protests and strikes.

Objectors to the Law of Pays are also COST, RTK and several technical workers in different sectors.

In a written reply, the ombudsman's Office has told Kosovo Radio that 20 to 20 to 20) complaints concerning the Law on Salaries in the Public Sector, not only by trade unions, but by various groups, which consider the Law for the Salaries in the Public Sectors negatively affects their interests.

Under the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo and the Law for the Constitutional Court, the Ombudsman can raise the issue of law compliance with the Constitution within the six-month deadline after the law's entry into force. The legal deadline for raising the issue in question begins to flow from the moment of entry into force of the Law on the Pagans.