Salaries Bill, SBASK: April 2nd could bring strike to education sector

SBASK Chairman Beftman Jashar, in a proposal for news.net, said that if Prime Minister Albin Kurti's government does not support their demands, then on Sunday, April 2nd it will be the SBASK <x0-congressor,”, writes news.

“If we are based on the situation now, not even union actions are excluded, there may be limited protests, but the worst is that April 2nd could also bring us general strikes in the entire education sector”, it has indicated.

According to him, this decision is not their wish, so Jashar said that all of this depends on the Government's willingness to sit with them and other trade unions and then support and take into account” proposals.

The situation is bad at the moment, and the SBASK opposes the version that is in the course of the wage law”, he said.

He has indicated that on Sunday night of February 13th, he has held a meeting with the Steering Council and municipal-level chiefs to discuss the same issue.

“The SBASK generally opposes this version, considering it to be derogatory to the education sector because instead of waiting to have the rise of co-fierts in the education sector there are even cases of lowering the law that was returned to zero by Constitution”, he added.

So we tend to cut down on cofficiators in the education sector and the rest that we've been sharply opposed is the ratio between the cofficients 1 to 20 which means the largest salary will be 20 times larger than the smallest salary or the smallest coffient”.

However, he added, he will try to meet with Minister of Education Arberie Nagavcin, Minister of Internal Affairs Jhelal Svecla, and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti to submit their proposal.

Law on wages in Kosovo

The Kosovo government, at the time of 2019 led by Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, had submitted the bill on wages to the Assembly, which was adopted.

The law envisioned the salary of 70 percent of civil servants. Through this law, a primary school teacher would raise salaries from 470 euros to 612 euros, while a doctor specialist from 600 euros to 1,000 and 195 euros.

Police and customs were also meant to raise salaries, but not to firefighters.

Meanwhile, the ombudsman institution, in December of that same year, had submitted this law to the Constitutional Court.

This, as it said, “the assessment of his compatibility” with the Constitution.

On June 30th 2020, the Constitutional Court of Kosovo had rendered the Law void for wages in the public sector.

Under the decision, the law is incompatible with 11 provisions of the Kosovo Constitution and causes “power-sharing disorder in the disparity of officer and independent institutions”.

From July 2019 until March 2021, Kosovo has had four different governments.