Increase of the minimum wage and the Government’s inaction to for scaled increase of other salaries will result in what the Union of workers in administration, judiciary and civic associations (UPOZ) said would happen – a collapse of the salary system in administration and judiciary, said UPOZ president Trpe Deanoski on Wednesday, MIA reports.

“The latest rise of the minimum wage has made an entire group of administration employees minimum wage recipients. In this way, the Government belittles and humiliates its employees while increasing the percentage of minimum wage employees from 13.8 percent to nearly 18 percent,” Deanoski told a press conference.

We have come to this situation, he added, because since the introduction of the minimum wage in 2021 up to the latest increase, it has risen by 120 percent while salaries in administration and judiciary have been upped by only 9-10 percent. Furthermore, certain sectors in the public administration have seen rise in salaries of up to 25 percent in recent years, while those in the administration and the judiciary are in standstill.

According to him, if the Government had observed its own laws and aligned salaries with the minimum wage, as stipulated in Article 8 of the Law on the Minimum Wage, it wouldn’t have come to this situation.

“The points-based salary system in administration and judiciary takes into account the education level and the post to which the employee is assigned. Unless there is a scaled increase of salaries, we will come to a situation where employees from lower levels receive the same salary as those from upper levels or high school-educated staff gets the same wages as those holding a university degree,” said Deanoski. UPOZ’s demand to the Government is that changes are made in the laws regulating salaries in administration and judiciary by taking the minimum wage as the basis. Otherwise, the union said it would be forced to stage a strike or use other forms of pressure.