Workers Risked by Crisis Abandoned by Unions

The economic crisis has already begun, and this inevitable crisis mostly hits the poorest levels of society -- social cases, the unemployed, but also low-income employees. That is true for each country and is becoming very serious in Kosovo.

Private sector workers are the most endangered for many reasons.

“Most of them are workers with short-term contracts and no institutional support. Being at the same time the most employed in jobs that do not require qualified jobs, they are easily substituteable. Under such circumstances, these workers live in a high and daily danger to their workplace. Now, since we are in a medical and especially economic emergency, these are the ones whose working relationship is suspended. True, the government's emergency fiscal package covers these workers' 170-euro salary (just for April and May alone). But this is extremely insufficient for a vital minimum for the average family in Kosovo (4-5 members). This becomes even more serious in view of the fact that most people with a job contract already have a bank loan that he has planned to pay via pay (300-400 euros per month)”, says the Institute for Social Policy Community “Mousine Cocalari”

The other most endangered category of workers are those without regular contracts. The number of unregistered workers in Kosovo amounts to 35% of the total number of workers (Analise of the grey economy in Kosovo), A SHAK 2019). This part of the workforce automatically passes into a situation without a monthly income and not being found in official records these for public institutions do not exist at all. Consequently, they can't have any support, apart from registering as unemployed in order to secure a monthly income of 130 euros a month. Even this possibility remains unclear as the government's Emergency Package has guaranteed a fund that will cover “Monthly assistance wages worth an estimated one hundred and thirty (130) euros for citizens who lose their jobs due to the emergency public health situation for April, May and June...”. But contractless workers find it impossible to testify that they have lost their jobs because they have never officially been employed. But even if they become beneficiaries of this scheme they will spend 300-400 euros monthly to 0-130 euros per month overnight. Even during their working as unregistered workers, these rights have been extremely vulnerable and low incomes (remembered for them not paid retirement insurance). Add to this the permanent delays in monthly wages and debts that have accumulated employers who have exploited the difficult position of these workers, all of which remain uncontaminated injustices.

The overwhelming majority of these workers come from sectors that have no union organisation in Kosovo, such as construction, hotel, financial sector, majority and retail sales, small and medium-sized production workers, are almost completely undiscovered by the current union (for the sake of correction in Kosovo), the Private Sector Union functions, but a considerable part of the workers are neither members nor aware of its existence). Consequently, these workers have been left alone, and the government unfortunately sees this economic problem and the current crisis only is through two priorities: the business (capital) and its needs; the poverty one; and for which the government adopts charitable, non-communicative measures based on the right to the principle of solidarity and equality. While trade unions are not heard talking about these categories since they have no members.

The heavy position of these workers at this time of crisis speaks loud about the necessity of empowering union organisation in Kosovo. Strengthening also means expanding union organization through numerous active sectors of our economy and which are completely outside such organization. Of course, the circumstances in which these workers work make union organization very difficult. These above - mentioned sectors require unqualified or low - qualifications jobs. This makes these workers easy to replace, and they become far more explosive. But at this point there must be strong support from public institutions to guarantee these workers the safety of the workplace and the right to union organisation. It also needs to intervene in the Labour Law to eliminate the extreme and absurd flexibility of contracts in this law. There is no minimum deadline for the labour contract under the Law in effect. The only set time there is the maximum 10 years of a contract for a specified term. If this exceeds the contract, it is considered a contract indefinitely. A lack of minimum deadline (e.g. The ban on contracting less than 1 years) creates great uncertainty for workers, since it has already proved that short-term contracts are used as a means of discipline for workers, because it greatly increases employee arbitraries and curtails workers' rights.

Such union organization would benefit the State and our society greatly. First because these united and organised workers will have far greater capacities to improve their working conditions, including their salaries. The increase in wages in the private sector serves the economy in general, since it increases the social aggression requirement. Second, union organization would speed up the registration of these workers and the reduction of the grey economy in this area. Union membership, when there is no fear of job loss, becomes very attractive to workers. So they would be legalized through union registration. This would directly help our country because it would increase the amount of money paid in state form.

The current crisis has also highlighted an extraordinary weakness held by the Republic of Kosovo, and especially by workers in it, the Fund's lack of employment. Of course, such a fund would be impossible for him to cover such a large and all at once. But such crises in micro-economic-Social structures we have constantly in our economy. And just as it is unaffordable when most of the employees in Kosovo do not have income due to indecision, so it is unaffordable for individual workers when they lose their jobs in times of habit. This crisis shows how important it is to have protection of the rights and interests of workers in Kosovo. Now that we're all feeling the crisis, we'd have to remember and know how difficult and unfair such crises are. And let's also realize that there are others who have this confrontation ready to have a matter of everydayity. They, each of us potentially, very much need institutional support in the case of job loss. Therefore, the Fund for Nonemployment is a social and economic necessity for our country.