The Chamber Wants Fewer Holidays, While Many Workers Don't Even Get Extra Pay for Working on One

The Economic Chamber has come out with an initiative to cut public holidays: a holiday that falls on a Sunday would no longer mean a free Monday, and employees would choose only two religious holidays. While the Chamber counts days off, the union points to something that never makes it into that calculation - how many workers get no money at all when they work on a holiday.

"A large number of workers receive no compensation for working on a holiday, on Sunday or on a non-working day (some get 100 or 500 denars), they get less than 20 days of annual leave, and in chunks of 5 or 8 days that count weekends, holidays and non-working days against it, they get no seniority bonus, no overtime pay, no night-work pay, and their other allowances are not paid," says Slobodan Trendafilov, president of the Federation of Trade Unions of Macedonia.

Economy and Labor Minister Besar Durmishi is, for now, on the workers' side. "Workers have acquired rights that belong to them. The holidays are for citizens of whatever religion, and we will not intervene in that area," he said at the press conference where he presented the consumer basket for August. In his view, the focus should be on raising productivity, "not on demotivating workers with steps like these".

Durmishi says no official proposal from the Chamber has reached the Ministry yet. If it does, it will be discussed at the session of the Economic and Social Council scheduled for October 19. In other words, the door is closed at the press conference, but it stays open at the session.

The Chamber's initiative boils down to more working days. But if some employers already don't pay for holiday work or grant the legal annual leave, then maybe the productivity problem isn't in the calendar. Before holidays get deleted, someone should check who respects the rights that already exist. That is a job for the State Labor Inspectorate, not for the people counting holidays.