Over a thousand workers win additional salaries for weekend work hours at KEK

The workers of the Kosovo Energy Corporation (KEK) had filed charges in 2012, claiming the indictee had not compensated for the weekend jobs for the period of October 1st 2011 to September 30th 2017.

In the act provided by the “Justice Act”, it turns out that the Constitutional Court in Pristina has found that the plaintiffs had not been compensated for additional work over the weekend, right that it was due to them under Article 56par.1 of the Labour Law in which checks that “employees belong to additional salaries at a percentage of the basic pay, as follows: 20% per hour for custody, 30% on hours for night work and overtime, 50% on time for work during holiday days, and 50% hours for work during weekend<>

According to the argument of the Constitutional Court's act, it turns out that it was proven on the basis of 2011 work contracts and Article 39 of the Code of Labour that compensation for extra hours for the weekend work was initial.

The court has, however, found that the plaintiffs possess the work contracts with which they argue that they work with shifts, so that financial expertise has proved that they have worked on weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) depending on the working time, respectively, while the indictee does not compensate 50% for the hours of work over the weekend, nor has he given them a free day on additional pay”, the argument states.

The court has found that on the basis of financial expertise all plaintiffs had worked on shifts, and the same had worked on weekend days depending on working time.

“According to legal provisions one of the worker's fundamental rights is the salary, in this basic right case the plaintiffs are the additional wage for the weekend and Sundays, according to provisions of Article 55 of the Labour Law, which the plaintiffs have failed to realise”, says the Court's argument.

The court in that decision had refused the prosecution for some indictments after the same had not argued the basis of the prosecution.

In this process the indictment's claims were that the plaintiffs' requirement was unequipped because the plaintiffs had not worked overtime, had no extra hours. According to KEK, the plaintiffs had been working during regular working hours because KEK's activity was specific, the indictee had made arrangements for work hours in line with the Labour Law.

According to KEK, the employer paid overtime only if the worker called from the break to work on the weekend.

However, these claims, the Court has found them groundless, since financial expertise has confirmed that the plaintiffs had worked over the weekend while failing to compensate for the 50% salary.

The Court of Pristina has confirmed this ruling, and the Court of Appeals has confirmed the latter two, which has refused the revision of the indictee.

Kosovo's <x0); Supreme Court, in this state of concrete civil law case, acknowledges as the foundation of the lower instance's judicial position, regarding the approval as partly the foundation of the prosecution's application, in terms of compensation of additional salaries for weekend affairs, from that the bias of lower institutions has not been taken with substantial violations of the contextal procedure provisions, nor with the wrong application of material law, and that 10 are not included with the essential violations of the prosecution of the procedure that the court handles the revision of the official ordination of (4) in the Supreme Reason. /Betimy for Justice