Pandemia, workers with COVID-19, have only received half of the salary

Azem in an interview for Kosova Prees, has said some companies have unfairly benefited from the emergency package, finding the shape of how to draw money from workers' salaries.

He also claimed that workers who have resulted in COVIID-19 have kept the forced firing for 14 days and then the company has fired him, or even in cases where the company paid him only half the wages.

“The workers are highly discriminated against because even the salaries that have been received additional by the Government of Kosovo, the company's owners have given custody in some form to withdraw the money from their salaries, despite that, we have numerous cases where workers at times when they are without COVID, have been released in some form of forced rest and have lost their jobs. We have cases where workers have been completely cured and company owners don't take them back to their jobs, but we have cases even when the volume of work is not how it was and the owners of companies have turned down their salaries, but often they have done it a large reduction of”, he said.

Azemi said that the private sector union has information that in some known model, workers work up to 11 hours or work even seven days a week.

Amma for Kosova Preiss stressed that all these drugs are prosecuted in inspectors, but there are materials that have entered the second year and have not come to an end.

He said the inspectors always find excuses that they don't have enough staff to cover them all, but it's not the same for public companies, because their effects, the inspectorate ends within the week.

It's hard to say but workers have lost the courage and will that our institutions deal with this real issue. In fact at the moment that we process the courses of these workers, inspectors come out that we have only thirty-five active inspectors and they can't end it here. It is known that the cases workers in the mini-market work eleven or twelve hours, but maybe sometimes work even seven days a week. There are times when workers to take advantage of a day's rest must work the two shifts of one day to have a free day off. We have the passing portion of the processed subjects in inspectors, but ultimately we can say that the Inspectorate is probably not even 10 per cent is doing what capacity it should be for, Azem said.

Meanwhile, Labour Chief Inspector Ekrem Kastrati, questioned by Kosova Preris, through email, said there is knowledge of cases when workers work up to 11 hours and that they are not paid for extra hours. He has said it is a challenge for the labour inspectorate, since the Inspectorate does not have enough capacity for land coverage.

It is not controversial that in certain working hours it is longer than the regular working schedule, but initially we explain to them that according to the provision of Article 23 of the Labour Law, paragraph 1 of this article, the employer has the right to extend his work schedule, and in paragraph 4 of this same article besides extra obligatory work under paragraph 1, the employee can do voluntary work in agreement with the paying employer under 56 work law compensation, so according to the provisions in question in case of setting no longer the right to work more hours than 8 hours. But as far as additional hours are concerned, this issue remains a challenge for the IP, as the IP positioned even higher did not have enough capacity to cover the ground”, he said.

Regarding some cases when workers who have resulted in Covid-19 and after forced vacation were paid only half as pay, he has said such cases were not submitted to the IP.

Regarding the compensation of employees affected by Washington 19, respectively, their compensation for forced firing of half a salary, we were informed that no complaints have been filed on the IP for such cases, while regular inspections have also not reported having encountered in any case. However, in the following days during regular inspections if such cases are presented will be identified under official reports”, he said.

Kastrati added that reduced staff operation cannot be realised with more inspections in Kosovo.