Kosovo Workers Threaten Strikes Over PM's Pay Hike

Public-sector workers in Kosovo have threatened strikes after the Constitutional Court ruled that a government decision, hiking cabinet members' salaries, did not violate the law.

Ramush Haradinaj, the Prime Minister of Kosovo | Photo: EPA/ Valdrin Xhemaj

Unions representing Kosovo’s public-sector workers are threatening to go on strike in support of their demand for higher salaries.

The warning comes after Kosovo’s Constitutional Court ruled on June 11 that Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj ‘s decision to increase the salaries of cabinet members, judges and prosecutors, and his own salary by 100 per cent, does not break the law.

Avni Ajdini, head of the Union of General Syndicates of Kosovo, BSPK, told BIRN on Thursday that the government had discriminated against workers in the public sector.

“We are not against salary increases but we are against discriminating against [public-sector] employees,” he said. “Our demand is to increase salaries in general and we will not stop until this demand is met,” Ajdini stated.

He added that workers felt offended by the PM’s decision, “so strikes are not excluded as a tool in our demand”.

Haradinaj has reminded critics that the salary increase is not only for him, but for 600 judges and prosecutors who will all directly benefit from pay rises.

However, the Union of Judiciary Workers said that after the decision to increase salaries only for prosecutors and judges, it was also mulling a strike.

The Healthcare Trade Union Federation has also threatened the government, demanding it submit a draft law on salaries by the end of June.

“If that is not done, the healthcare system will collapse,” the head of the union, Blerim Syla, said on Wednesday.

In January 2018, the country’s Anti-Corruption Agency, ACA, assessed that the pay decision constituted a conflict of interest, because the Prime Minister and other ministers were increasing their own salaries.

The opposition Vetevendosje party has announced it will sue Haradinaj, the ministers who voted in favour of the decision, and also the judges of the Consitutional Court.

Vetevendosje MP Albulena Haxhiu said the government’s decision to increasing its staff’s own salaries was a crime, and it interfered with the competencies of parliament.

The decision was first made in December 2017. In January 2018, a group of 30 MPs sent the decision to the Constitutional Court, arguing that it was unconstitutional.