The Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria (KRIB) insists that civil servants start paying their own insurance contributions, as all other workers in the country do. The request was defended on the air of “Hello, Bulgaria“ on “Nova TV“ by the executive director of KRIB Boyan Mitrakiev, while the chairman of the Union of Administrative Employees in the CT “Podkrepa“ Kremena Atanasova stated that the union supports the idea in principle, but only if it does not lead to a reduction in employees' incomes.
According to Boyan Mitrakiev, the current model creates injustice between those working in the private and public sectors. “We believe that absolutely everyone should pay their own insurance contributions. People have shown that they are already intolerant of inequalities and privileges that are created for certain groups in the state sector,“ he said.
According to him, the exemption of some civil servants from personal insurance contributions was introduced years ago as a mechanism to compensate for lower salaries in the administration, but today the conditions are different.
“The balance has long been disturbed and it is time to restore it,“ believes Mitrakiev.
The CRIB estimates that if civil servants start paying their own insurance, the positive effect on public finances could reach hundreds of millions of leva annually. “According to our calculations, the effect will be about 300 million leva, and according to other estimates it could reach 600 million“, said the executive director of the employers' organization.
He also argued his position with publicly known cases of high salaries in state institutions. “Society sees salaries that are approaching those of heads of large international organizations and companies. This raises questions about the fairness of the system“, commented Mitrakiev.
Kremena Atanasova disputed some of the employers' arguments and emphasized that often the public debate focuses on single examples of high salaries.
“The state administration employs about 98 thousand people. The majority of employees do not receive salaries of 10 or 12 thousand euros. We are talking about people at the counter, social workers, inspectors and control bodies, who receive significantly lower salaries“, she said.
In her words, the high salaries of a limited circle of managers should not be used as an argument against the entire administration. Despite criticism of the position of KRIB, Atanasova stressed that the CT “Podkrepa“ has been defending the idea of civil servants paying their own social security contributions for years.
“Yes, social security contributions must be paid by civil servants. The reason is that currently they are not included in the amount of remuneration and this leads to lower benefits for maternity, sick leave, unemployment and retirement“, she explained.
However, the union sets a condition - before the change, social security contributions must be included in the basic salaries. “These funds are already part of personnel costs. Salaries must be updated so that the net income of employees does not decrease“, Atanasova was categorical.
The two interlocutors also got into an argument about the comparison between remuneration in the private and public sectors.
According to Mitrakiev, it is unfair for civil servants to receive higher incomes than those working in business, given that it is the private sector that forms the main part of tax revenues.
“We are the net taxpayers. The private sector pays the taxes and insurances that finance the state system“, he said.
For her part, Atanasova pointed out that the statistics are also affected by the presence of a shadow economy in the private sector. “There is not a single penny of a shadow sector in the state administration. If salaries there for the first time surpass the average in the private sector, this also speaks to the problems with low pay in a number of businesses“, she said.
The chairman of the Union of Administrative Employees also drew attention to the restrictions that apply to civil servants. “They do not have the right to a second employment contract, they do not have the right to business activity, they do not receive food vouchers and they do not have the right to a collective labor agreement. They want to be treated like all other workers and employees“, Atanasova said.