Workers complain: Government is continuing with illegal trend, state in collapse

The private sector during the pandemic has faced major losses, over 30,000 people were left without jobs, and many others were not paid.

Private sector Workers Union Chairman Yusuf Azemi, in an interview for Online Economics, has spoken about the state of workers in the private sector and the most economically charged categories due to the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic.

According to Azem, the Government of Kosovo has had to execute the second salary of workers late May.

He said this government is also continuing with illegal trends.

The fourth month that we started with the pandemic is ending, and it has had to be the budget for economic recovery distributed, where even the first phase has failed to end because of the Kosovo government's irresponsability”.

“According to the decision the Government of Kosovo has the second workers' salary for Ovid-19 has had to be executed at the end of May and we are at the end of June and the first phase has not yet ended. Even this government is continuing with illegal trends like the government of the past because we as unions have announced that abuses have been made in the division of tools. And we're still calling the government sit down and see the mistakes made by the past”, Azemi added.

Among other things, Azemi has said that over 20,000 private sector workers have not even received the government's first salary.

He indicated that more than 8m euros have been misused by private company owners by going to salaries in their accounts, not workers.

According to him, daily workers in the private sector are losing their jobs.

“Private sector employees are disappointed because we have over 20,000 private sector workers who haven't received a salary in the first phase, so worse a great sum has gone to the employee accounts. We have companies from zero to bottom that have gone to the owner's account and didn't go to the employee's account”.

“We have announced all institutions and prosecutors that are making us suspects that this government will also continue the trend of the previous government to misuse tools. There are over 8 million euros that have been misused and we have facts. We have workers every day coming here and losing their jobs because we are too disorganized to protect this economic power we have”, Azemi added.

According to him, workers are afraid to express their concerns because they can leave work by their owners, adding that the state is in collapse.

We've taken all of our actions and started protesting both in Gjilan and in many other municipalities regarding the misuse of the means that company owners have done, but of course the country's risk of workers for the country's”.

The moment the company owners gather, they call the workers and fire them. So workers say it's better to work without two three salaries the government has shared than to be unemployed. The state is in collapse”, he added.

Azemi has said they have submitted requests to the prime minister, two deputy prime ministers and the finance minister, but are still waiting for a discussion on resolving their problems.

“We have applied for a meeting with the prime minister and two deputy prime ministers and the finance ministry and are waiting for a conversation to be resolved so that these problems we have and have demanded that if we do not cool you like Government you are in a parallel to the misuse acceptance that has been made in the past”, Azemi added.