Due to the government’s decision to increase the minimum wage, businessmen are announcing large protests for Wednesday in Sarajevo. They have organized themselves into a Viber group called Entrepreneurs of the Federation, and in that group with more than eight thousand members, they have been warning for days about, as they say, the harmful consequences that this decision will have in the long term on the economy and economic growth in the Federation, but also in the country as a whole.
After the measures to ban smoking in public places and a non-working week, the government’s Regulation on the Minimum Wage was perceived by employers, as well as a large part of the public, as a direct blow to the economy of the Federation and a favor to another BiH entity, which is why they have announced mass protests in front of the Federation Government for Wednesday.
“There are currently around 8,000 businessmen from all over Bosnia and Herzegovina in the group. The protests are being organized under the slogan ‘Five to Twelve’, because five to twelve really has come to us,” says Jasmin Begić, one of the group’s administrators and a businessman from Maglaj.
The Federation Government passed the Regulation for itself, not for the sake of workers – Begić believes.
“Both the government and employers, and sometimes workers, and all together, should bear the burden so that we, as a society, are better off,” said Adnan Delić, the federal minister for labor and social policy.
“Employers have never been against a minimum wage of one thousand marks. The problem is contributions. For example, a worker earns 1,700 BAM per month. When he raises his salary, the state automatically takes 700 BAM from him at that moment and gives him 1,000 BAM. He goes to buy household supplies and the state takes an additional 17 percent of that thousand,” says Begić.
The government admits that they are counting on a more intensive filling of the budget after the implementation of the decree.
“By increasing the minimum wage, increasing the workload, or increasing the taxable part of the salary, the income to the Pension and Disability Insurance Fund will also increase,” Delić points out.
On the contrary, employers believe that after the mass layoffs that, they say, will follow from the beginning of next month, the financing of public sector obligations will also come into question, in addition to the real one. The regulation, they say, was instigated from outside with the aim of undermining economic growth in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“It was, in principle, done in centers like Belgrade and Zagreb. The import lobby is actually doing it. We know that and it is justified, but we have to protect ourselves from the import lobby, and our government works for that import lobby,” Begić concludes.
