NEWS
Prime Minister's press conference following the Government's 95th regular session "Slow but steady economic growth is about to begin"
At today's regular session, the Slovenian Government adopted the text of the draft amendment to the Public Sector Wage System Act. The Minister of Public Administration, Irma Pavlinič Krebs, and the Slovenian Prime Minister, Borut Pahor, first outlined the proposed amendment and then answered several relevant questions.
The aim of the proposed amendment to the Public Sector Wage System Act (ZSPJS) is to ascertain how the majority required by the representative public sector trade unions is to be determined, in order to facilitate the collective agreement of the public sector (KPSJ) and the adoption of an annex to this collective agreement. In essence, the amended rules are a combination of the applicable rules in force to date, which provide the conditions necessary for the establishment of the required quorum pursuant to data made available to the public or voluntarily submitted by trade unions. This procedure therefore requires no special agreement to be reached between social partners. The forming of a quorum will, in any event, be formally established by the competent ministry – the Ministry of Public Administration – by a decision to be published together with the collective agreement.
The proposed amendment to the ZSPJS is intended for the purpose of determining the quorum or the majority on the side of the representative trade unions that is required to conclude the collective agreement for the public sector (KPSJ) and to adopt its amendments and supplementations. This is to be achieved by adequately reflecting the majority will of the public sector trade unions and the modalities for establishing whether KPSJ or its amendments have been agreed upon. In the light of the current ambiguity as to whether the collective agreement or its amendments and supplementations have been agreed upon, the proposed amendments to the Act aim to clarify the conditions pertaining to their validity and the manner in which this validity can be established. In view of the fact that the KPJS includes important elements for a standardised wage system and the classification of benchmark posts and titles into wage grades, i.e. the level of remuneration for these posts, the Government deems it necessary that a collective agreement is concluded with trade unions, which represent a sufficient percentage of employees in the public sector, this percentage also applying to its amendments, while the verification of its validity should be prescribed.
The reason for the adoption of the amendment to the ZSPJS is to modify the normative framework, which, thus far, has not provided clarity as to whether a public sector collective agreement or its amendments have been adopted as stipulated. On the other hand – bearing in mind the ambiguity that can emerge regarding the representativeness of trade unions from various lines of work – the Act allowed for the conclusion of an agreement with representative public sector trade unions to be possible, which, if taking the number of the representative public trade unions into account, indeed represent the majority of trade unions and demonstrate how representative they are in relation to certain jobs or professions in the public sector. However, according to the membership levels of these trade unions, they represent a smaller percentage of public sector employees and, crucially, do not represent employees in four areas of work, for which wage grades are stipulated by law. The aim of the amendment is to provide a normative framework for the conclusion of a public sector collective agreement and its amendments that will enable the representative public trade unions to conclude such a collective agreement by considering two methods: a method laid down for the adoption of amendments and supplementations in the applicable collective agreement, and a method of concluding a collective agreement provided by Article 42 of the Act. Both methods will have to comply with the prescribed manner of establishing the fulfilment of conditions provided by this amendment.
At the press conference, Prime Minister Pahor also highlighted the data published today regarding the economic growth in the second quarter of this year (an increase in the scope of GDP by 2%). This data demonstrates that slow but steady economic growth is about to begin. "Although not particularly strong, it will nevertheless allow Slovenia to return to the path of a true recovery," emphasised Mr Pahor. "Anyone who has analysed the ups and downs of GDP in Slovenia knows how steep the fall was in 2009. At that time, few believed that we would emerge from the turmoil of the economic crisis to proceed on the path we are seriously considering today," said the Prime Minister and added that the measure adopted by the Government today, is vital for the stabilisation of economic growth.