Kosovo Buffeted by Waves of Public Sector Strikes

Kosovo's Federations of Health Unions, FSSHK, held a strike on Thursday, at a time when the government of Albin Kurti is coming under almost constant pressure from other unions and their protests.

Health workers at the main University Clinical Center of Kosovo, UCCK, in the capital, Pristina, and in all seven regional hospitals in the country, stopped providing services from 7am to 3pm on Thursday, demanding urgent approval of the draft Law on public sector pay.

They want the approval of this draft law and its immediate implementation within the 2022 state budget.

Blerim Syla, head of the health unions, told BIRN that his members "will hold all-day strikes, everyday, if they do not fulfil our requests by next Thursday".

In June 2020, Kosovo's Constitutional Court ruled that the 2019 law on public sector pay was unconstitutional. That law had increased the salaries of 70 per cent of public sector employees, leaving 30 per cent aside.

The FSSHK also claimed it will sue the Minister of Finance, Hekuran Murati, over his Facebook post claiming the federation had received 3 million euros in the last five years - with no track of what the money was used for.

"In the last five years, FSSHK has received over 3 million euros in the name of contributions that were deducted from the salaries of health personnel and transferred to the FSSHK. I doubt health personnel have ever been notified of where this money has gone," Murati posted.

Another protest demanding implementation of the stalled Law on salaries was announced for Friday by the Independent Union of Kosovo Administration workers, SPAK.

SPAK on Tuesday claimed the government had ignored: "The Law on salaries; the budgeting of resources for the implementation of the...