Five trade unions in Republika Srpska, representing about 55,000 public sector employees, claim that they were played by the government when it comes to the agreement, they reached with the government last year on salary increases, while earlier in the government they claimed exactly the opposite. In the following days, the unions announced joint activities and the organization of a trade union committee, and did not exclude protests in early September.
Trade unions in Republika Srpska that bring together workers employed in public administration, police, health care and the judiciary have started joint activities in order to again ask the Government to fully comply with the Agreement signed last year, by which the Government pledged to raise and wages by analysing the budget and price increases to the amount of the hot meal and twelfth of the recourse. They don't rule out the possibility of protests in early September.
"Whether protests are a choice, one of the options, they certainly are, for the simple reason that we have been deceived. Civil servants, police officers, doctors, nurses, educators, judiciary workers have been mitigating the crisis over their backs for fifteen years," says Republika Srpska Board Union President Bozo Maric.
At the end of the second quarter, the working group of the Government and trade unions analysed the budget and price increases, where they were again divided. While the unions see the wage growth justified, the Government is determined that there is no question of it, as evidenced by the then statement of the finance minister.
"You can be angry whoever you want, but there is no room for salary increases. We need to watch revenues grow. VAT is falling and it will fall. Frankly, we don't even have an excuse to raise salaries in public administration. It would not be fair for us to raise salaries enormously in the public sector now, because then what will we do with the real ones?" said Zora Vidović at the time.
In these five unions is not the Union of Education, Science and Culture, which is a signatory of an earlier Agreement with the Government. The biggest problem for them is the long-standing demand for equalization of coefficients with other budget users, and there are about 23 thousand employees. They say they expect negotiations in the coming days.
"I expect a shift, a shift for the better. We will see what is reality, what is possible, and that this long-standing injustice is corrected towards workers in education, science and culture and that we continue further cooperation and negotiations in accordance with laws and regulations", said the president of the Union of Education, Science and Culture of RS Dragan Gnjatić.
It is still early to say whether tens of thousands of public sector workers will take to the streets to demand higher salaries, because for years there have been no gatherings in the RS for this reason. It should be recalled that last year five unions threatened protests when they submitted an interpellation to parliament demanding the separation of a warm meal and recourse from the salary after which the Government relented and concluded an agreement.