PRESS RELEASE
Dear media representatives,
We would like to inform you that the Federation of Trade Unions of Macedonia received an invitation for First Public Debate on the Draft Law on Labor Law which is scheduled to be held on November 14, 2018 in the MP’s Club in Skopje, on which an address only by a representative from the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, a representative of the Employers’ Organization of Macedonia and the Vice President of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation LO is foreseen. On this debate not a single representative of the workers’ organizations was invited to address.
For this invitation, a Protest Letter was sent to the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy and the Labor Minister, Mila Carovska by the Federation of Trade Unions of Macedonia.
Considering the importance of the Labor Law, which is a Constitution for the workers’ rights for all workers in the Republic of Macedonia, among which there are members of the trade unions, it is extremely worrying that the start of the first public debate on the Draft Labor Law is being realized without the direct involvement of the workers or their representatives.
With this exclusion of part of the social partners in the process by the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, an image that the process is conducted without a tripartite social dialogue is being created, and with this ignorant attitude towards the workers and the trade unions in the Republic of Macedonia and favoring only one side, i.e. the employers, leaves a possibility of a serious decrease of certain employment rights to the detriment of the workers in the Republic of Macedonia, for which we sincerely do not want to believe that it is happening.
The Federation of Trade Unions of Macedonia, in period when the Republic of Macedonia strives to join the big European family, and in period when we are committed to respect European values, including respect of the European labor rights, we shall not allow the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy and the employers, who obviously act jointly, to make any reductions in the labor rights to the detriment of the workers.
CCM as a relevant social partner, as it was in the past period, shall exclusively act in the direction of promotion of workers' rights, for which we have sent our proposals for the new draft Labor Law.