Institute for Social Policy and Government: Your decision is violation of the basic right workers enjoy, the right to strike cannot be suspended

Through a post this Institute has reminded the Kurti Government that the decision made against strikers is a direct violation of the basic right enjoyed by law workers on strike.

It has even been mentioned in the Law on Strikes, where Article 13 does not expect strikers to be suspended in any way.

“The situation becomes even more serious when such a threat comes from a government that has been voted into a progressive government that is essentially of its electoral pledge and has had social well-being and has promised to engage in the discriminated class of society. But it becomes even more serious when such a threat is based on such a malicious misreading of the Law on Strikes.
Article 18 used as an excuse for this threat correctly implies the opposite of government interpretation. The suspension of contractual obligations refers to the worker's right not to appear in the workplace when it has become part of the legal strike. The law must be read thoroughly. Article 13 of the Law strictly prohibits the undertaking of any measure, whether it be disciplinary or material, against strike workers, against strike organisers, or even against strike supporters”, it is said among other things.

Full Posting:

Right to strike cannot be suspended!
The Government of the Republic of Kosovo's decision to suspend the pay to major education workers is direct violation of the basic right that law workers enjoy on strike. The union organisation that has historically and globally brought so much advance of workers' rights and working conditions is one of the pillars of social progress and at the same time the principal guarantee of equal treatment at work, and therefore society. And union organisation doesn't mean anything without the right to strike.
The situation becomes even more serious when such a threat comes from a government that has been voted into a progressive government that is essentially of its electoral pledge and has had social well-being and has promised to engage in the discriminated class of society. But it becomes even more serious when such a threat is based on such a malicious misreading of the Law on Strikes.
Article 18 used as an excuse for this threat correctly implies the opposite of government interpretation. The suspension of contractual obligations refers to the worker's right not to appear in the workplace when it has become part of the legal strike. The law must be read thoroughly. Article 13 of the Law strictly prohibits the undertaking of any measure, whether it be disciplinary or material, against strike workers, against strike organisers, or even against supporters of the strike.
Otherwise it wouldn't have made sense to have law that allows strike. Because there can be no strike in case the employer has the right to punish the workers involved. So the non-paid threat to the striking teachers is practically the arbitrary suspension of the rights they enjoy to participate in union and strike organisation. With this threat, the government is creating an extremely dangerous possibility of major damage to the organization of workers. Today it is being done against the workers of the educational system. But if it can apply to any worker in the public and private sector. And this will put the largest and most productive layer of society, working class, in a situation of oppression and arbitrary brutal explosion. And that's what the first Social Democrat Government in Kosovo is doing.
August 26, 2022
Institute for Social Policy “Mousine Cocalari”