Social partners - government, employers and trade unions - managed on Thursday to agree in principle on the new social agreement. "We can say that the social agreement has been agreed upon," said the head of the government's negotiating group Dusan Krajnik.
The agreement comes after a year and a half of talks after the three sides managed to agree on the chapter on wage policy, the last contentious issue.
The breakthrough is based on six points, presented by the Pergam trade union, and envisages a wage policy that would guarantee a growth of wages in real terms while at the same time takes into account productivity and inflation. The deal, however, does not state the rate of growth of wages and keeps the numbers to be set in collective bargaining agreements for individual industries and companies, said Dusan Rebolj, the head of the Pergam trade union. "The proposed agreement means a wind of change in wage policy as it also factors in productivity," Rebolj said.
The agreement also states that talks on workers' profit sharing will begin as soon as possible within the Economic and Social Council - a social relations forum - and that the act on the minimum wage needs to be amended in a way to allow all social partners to influence the amount of the minimum wage.
The three sides are to meet again on Monday to officially close the chapter and initial the agreement, Krajnik said and added that the document, which contains 19 chapters and is to be in force until 2009, was to be signed in September.
Joze Smole of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce hailed the deal as progress indeed. "The trade unions backed down from their demand that the growth of wages must mirror the growth of productivity. This was the final breakthrough," Smole said. The deal says that productivity will be built into the collective bargaining agreements, in line with the criteria which will be agreed upon in each industry, he said.
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