There are major differences in salaries in eastern and western parts of the European Union.
The Alliance of Independent Trade Unions of Croatia (SSSH) warned on Wednesday that salaries of workers in the eastern part of the European Union continued to fall behind their counterparts in Western countries. The most dramatic decline in wages has been registered by Croatia, where salaries dropped from 43 percent to 37 percent of the Western European average, reports Poslovni.hr on August 30, 2017.
The European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) has published a survey which shows that workers in the eastern EU countries earn half the average salary of employees in the Western EU member states which joined the EU before 2004, according to a SSSH statement. Workers in ten eastern states earn from 42 percent of average wages in the West (in Estonia) to less than 18 percent (in Bulgaria). Slovenia is the only country in which workers earn more than 50 percent of the western average.
The pay gap between the east and west of the EU was declining in the late 1990s and for most of the next decade, but this was stopped by the economic crisis in 2008, the SSSH points out. In six out of 11 eastern member states, the wage gap rose from 2008 to 2016. The most dramatic decline was recorded in Croatia, where salaries fell from 43 percent to 37 percent of the Western European average. The drop in wages was also recorded in Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic and Slovenia.
Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) Esther Lynch warns that the pay gap between the east and west of Europe is “shockingly large,” and claims that this is a result of the exploitation of workers and the weak social dialogue. “During the economic crisis, the freezing and lowering of wages were more widespread in the eastern part of the EU. Of course, differences in productivity and cost of living mean that wages should not be the same, but that does not explain such big pay differences,” Lynch believes.
She stresses that salaries of workers in the eastern EU should grow more than inflation and productivity, in order to compensate for past exploitation. The EU and national governments should encourage collective bargaining between strong trade unions and employers’ associations.
Multinational companies in the east of the EU should pay fair wages and respect the rights of their workers to collective bargaining. Many of these companies respect trade union rights in their home countries, but this is not the case when they come to the east of the EU. It is also necessary to increase the minimum wage to secure the threshold of dignity and generally boost salary growth, Lynch says.
The SSSH demands an increase in the minimum wage to 50 percent of the average monthly gross salary, the redefinition of the concept of minimum wage without legally established bonuses and, generally, wage growth which should raise the standard of living of citizens and increase their purchasing power, which would affect further economic growth, says the statement.
“If employers and the government do not urgently accept our demands for increasing the minimum wage and salaries in general, Croatia could remain at the European bottom with low wages, and be at the European top only by migration figures,” says the SSSH president Mladen Novosel.
While listening to news about tourist records and GDP growth, we can no longer accept the claims that it is still not the time for wage growth and recovery. If urgent steps are not taken, we are determined to take industrial and other actions, Novosel concludes.
Translated from Poslovni.hr.
