Minimum wage

Members of the Communist Party's labor union, PAME, are to stage a rally in Syntagma Square on Monday afternoon, protesting planned changes to labor laws and demanding that collective wage bargaining laws be restored.

The communist-leaning PAME trade union has announced that it will hold a rally at Syntagma Square on Monday to demand the abolition of  "anti-worker" legislation and the reinstatement of collective bargaining.

In a statement on Friday, the union said it is demanding a minimum wage of 751 euros and increases in wages, pensions and social benefits.

The Bulgarian government has approved amendments to the Labour Code which ensure better protection for Bulgarian workers sent on working trips in the EU, reported the press centre of the Council of Ministers.

An independent panel of social security experts has proposed a new minimum salary of 527.40 euros for the first year at work and of 556.70 euros for the second.

This is an increase from the 511 euros that applies today for people aged up to 25 years old and represents the first time a link between the minimum wage and workers' experience has been proposed.

Reduced working hours or even suspension, with the state paying unemployment benefit and covering workers' social security while they are not working, are the proposals of a panel of experts on labor issues.

The plan to not reduce the minimum wage due to the rise in income taxes will cost the state budget 1 billion Turkish Liras ($336 million), said a top official in a televised interview on Sept. 21. 

The Turkish cabinet has pledged to not decrease the minimum wage due to the increasing cuts in incomes, said a leading official on Sept. 19. 

Turkey raised the minimum wage by 30 percent to 1,300 Turkish Liras ($436) for over 8 million workers at the beginning of the year.

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday night increased the country’s minimum wage 30 percent, amid rampant inflation that has destroyed purchasing power in the crisis-hit country.

As of May 1, the minimum wage will jump to 15,051 bolivars per month – $1,505 at the strongest official exchange rate but just $13.50 at the black market rate.

A medium-term budget forecast now before Bulgarian cabinet calls for freezing the minimum wage for two years after the end of next year as well as increasing the mandatory pension insurance contributions in 2017 and 2018.

The 2017-2019 budget forecast drafted by the Finance Ministry is on the agenda of the weekly meeting of the government on Wednesday.

Following Turkey's recent minimum wage hike, around 300,000 people working for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) lost their jobs in January, according to a new report by the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV).