Agency for Medicines Union: Bevanda's announced salary increase is humiliating

SARAJevo, (Patria) - In response to the statement by Finance Minister Vjekoslava Bevanda on a possible salary increase in BiH institutions, the Union of the Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices of BiH issued a statement.

“Such an announced Decision is yet another in a series of humiliating and belittling acts towards all employees, whose base for salary calculation was once 535 KM, was reduced twice by 10%, and with the current Decision on an increase of 4.5%, the salary base would amount to 498.7 KM.

For ten years with a reduced salary base, there has been neither the will nor the desire, let alone consideration for the Union's demands for salary increases and other issues related to the employment status of employees.

Employees with lower complexity coefficients will not see an increase of even 30-40 KM per month. The standard of living has increased, living costs have risen, and salaries have been reduced. For a full 10 years, we have been receiving reduced salaries, while entities have increased salaries several times, and where the Collective Agreement was violated, employees have recovered everything through courts, and the Council of Ministers level bombastically announces a possible increase,” says Ramo Rustemović, president of the Agency for Medicines Union.

The pressure from the Union, Rustemović states, which the minister refers to, was not strong enough or taken into account; it was requested that the base for salary calculation in 2020 be at least 535.00 KM, that the base cannot be less than 80 percent of the average salary in BiH, expressed on an annual level for the calendar year that precedes the year in which the base will be applied by two fiscal years.