Employers want salaries cut by 25 percent

Employers want salaries cut by 25 percent

BELGRADE -- The Union of Employers of Serbia believes that "the fund of gross salaries in the public sector must be reduced by 25 percent."

Secretary General of the Union Dušan Korunoski has been quoted as saying that "it is better to do it now and avoid bankruptcy, than to afterwards cut salaries by 40 percent."

Korunoski recalled that the Union also requested a reduction of taxes and contributions paid for salaries from 65 to 40 percent, which, he claims, "would make our workers more competitive than those in the Czech Republic." There, he added, the gross wage is the same as in Serbia, "but workers take home more money and give less to the state and less to the pension fund."

Korunoski also described the pension fund as "a bottomless pit."

There are, he said, some other opportunities for savings in the public sector - either the layoffs, or "people working in pairs."

"In the public sector there are people who have been doing nothing, and therefore they should be dismissed or offered to work part time or in pairs," he explained.

However, he said, the basic condition of for this is "a dramatically cheaper state administration."

"We must have a much cheaper public administration and in the end citizens, too, will pay less taxes," he added.

This representative of the Employers Union believes that unless the measures are taken, the country will go bankrupt, adding that "any economic growth that would somehow cancel out the budget deficit is not certain."

"Only if the gross national income is growing at a rate higher than the budget deficit, there is a chance to repay debts, and then that's a slim chance," said...