The KNSB proposes that in the labor agreement there should be more than one minimum wage depending on the education of the workers, Plamen Dimitrov, president of the union, said at the BTA press club in Veliko Tarnovo.
As well as negotiating the national minimum wage, unions say there should be two more national minimum wages – minimum wage for a worker with a secondary education, as well as a minimum wage for a worker with a higher education, according to the requirements of the position being held. The basic national minimum wage should be for people without high qualifications and skills, and there should be two more above it, added Dimitrov. According to him, there are similar practices in other European countries.
Before the journalists, Dimitrov commented that by November 15, 2024, Bulgaria must bring the European directive on adequate minimum wages in the European Union (EU) and the promotion of collective bargaining into its labor legislation. For this purpose, the trade unionists will visit more than 150 enterprises throughout the country, and at the meetings they will introduce the trade union members to the additional rights that the introduction of the directive and the change in the labor legislation will guarantee them.
With the change of at least five laws, the transparency of pay and the elimination of the so-called company secret about the amount of basic salaries in the enterprise. After the correct transposition of the directive, it is planned to stimulate the right to union association within the enterprises, and if this is limited by the employer, he will bear criminal liability, indicated the vice-president of the confederation, Todor Kapitanov.
Another goal is to increase the collective agreements in the various sectors, since there are currently only 12 collective labor agreements at the branch level. It is important that the state prepares a plan to deal with the transition regarding the so-called A green deal across all sectors – energy, agriculture, construction, transport and others, by setting up buffer mechanisms to avoid layoffs, said the organization's other vice president, Ognyan Atanasov.
According to last year's data, available to the Central Bureau of Statistics, there are 437,306 people employed on the minimum wage in our country, which is 19.7 percent of the working population. For Veliko Tarnovo, the number of people working for minimum wage is 16,601 or 26 percent, the reference shows. There are over 10,000 trade union members in the Veliko Tarnovo region, reported Vasil Todorov, regional coordinator of the KNSB.
As part of the campaign, a trade union tent was opened in front of the Municipality building, where the confederation's experts provided labor law consultations to workers and employees. Reports of violations of labor rights, the right to association and other cases are accepted.