Public Sector: Involved Parties Assure That Many Injustices Will Be Corrected

Today, MPs will discuss the law on the common foundations of the salary system in the public sector at an extraordinary session. Given that no one has opposed it in the parliamentary process so far, it is expected that the National Assembly will give it the green light. Along with the new collective agreement for the public sector, which government and union representatives initialed on Tuesday, this is an important milestone for the implementation of the renewed salary system starting January 1 next year. However, pillar negotiations are not yet complete, with police officers and soldiers being the most dissatisfied.

The state is expected to allocate slightly less than 1.4 billion euros over three years for increasing the incomes of approximately 190,000 public sector employees, which amounts to slightly more than 350 million euros per year. According to the Fiscal Council's assessment, the costs of the salary agreement will be the main reason why public spending will increase by more than a tenth next year. In the first half of November, when collective agreements for activities negotiated by pillars are expected to be finalized, both sides are expected to sign the final agreement for the start of the system's renewal, which few still refer to as a reform, as many anomalies are being transferred to the new scale. It would be hard to say that the ambitions of former Minister of Public Administration Sanja Ajanović Hovnik to unify rights and make the system more transparent after numerous partial interventions in the past have been realized.

Many injustices will be corrected, assure the involved parties, and the work of everyone will be better valued, starting with employees in the lower third of the scale, and nominally, of course, those at the top. However, several groups remain very dissatisfied, especially police officers, soldiers, and other employees in state bodies. Mayors of municipalities with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, more than half of all, are also disappointed.

Every Alternative Would Be Worse

“Two important milestones have been reached, very important steps have been made, but we are not yet at a point where we can say we are on the safe side,” Jakob Počivavšek, head of the negotiating group of representative public sector unions, assesses the progress of the reform preparation.

INFOGRAPHIC: Delo

Today, MPs will consider the legal framework that, among other things, defines the basic outlines – the new salary scale. It starts with the value of the minimum wage today (1253 euros gross), and the ratio between the lowest and highest salary will increase from the current 1:4.8 to 1:7. The reform is expected to cost 1.4 billion euros by 2028, with increases in six tranches. Initially, it will be noticeable for those with the lowest salaries, but nominally most for those with the highest, as the "ceiling" will move from the current 6087 to 8821 euros gross. The basis for promotions, which remains for up to ten salary grades, will no longer be annual assessments but will be automatically determined by law and not just in practice. The proposed acceleration at the beginning of an individual's career – the first ten years will advance by one grade every two years, the next ten years by one grade every three years, and later every four years. Those with above-average results will be able to climb the scale even faster, while those who do not meet expectations can have their promotion withheld by their superior.

The collective agreement, which the parties initialed on Tuesday, more precisely defines some salary supplements, especially for work during less favorable working hours, regulates additional pay for overburdened employees, and brings, as emphasized by the Ministry of Public Administration, significant novelties regarding comparability between individual pillars of the salary system.

“The field of complex negotiations on the new salary system has narrowed to the classification of jobs by individual pillars, which is, of course, a significant narrowing. However, the key questions here are whether we can reach the end or not,” summarized Branimir Štrukelj, president of the Confederation of Public Sector Unions of Slovenia. “I believe we are condemned to close the negotiations because all alternatives to reaching a new system mean some instability. However, this does not mean that we will indeed reach the end,” he reflects.

Several Important Questions Remain Open

Negotiations are still ongoing for three pillars – state administration, education and culture, health, and social care. “Very important questions remain open in all of them. I am absolutely on the side that we must find a compromise for them, but achieving compromises requires two parties. Both sides must put in extra effort, responsibility, and readiness. It is not particularly productive if one side takes a 'take it or leave it' position,” warns Štrukelj.

Jakob Počivavšek also agrees that no pillar, except the fifth, which concerns agencies and is somewhat smaller than the others, is fully aligned. The least aligned is the second pillar of state bodies, which includes uniformed professions. He agrees that a compromise is worth the effort, but emphasizes that it has never been possible to reach an agreement that satisfies every individual. “There will always be a group or individual who will more or less justifiably feel that an injustice has occurred, either absolutely or in relation to someone else. The agreement must have a sufficiently broad majority to be acceptable. Even during the 2008 reform, some large groups were very opposed,” Počivavšek recalled.

Among those who feel disadvantaged are police officers and soldiers, as well as others in state bodies, who have been warning for months that they will not quietly close this chapter. There is also some dissatisfaction in the functional pillar, which the unions do not negotiate and which is directly regulated by the law being discussed today – all mayors, who are categorized into seven categories based on the number of inhabitants, will have their base salaries increased by more than 50 percent, and some by more than 65 percent. However, mayors of municipalities with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, which is more than half, believe that their work is not adequately valued and hope that MPs will correct this with amendments today.