site.btaTrade Union Says Bulgaria's Farm Workers Are the Second Poorest in the Balkans

Sofia, October 3 (BTA) - Bulgarian farm workers are the second poorest in the Balkans with a monthly pay of 419 euro, leaving the bottom of the ranking to Macedonia with 401 euro. This transpired from the opening remarks by Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB) leader Plamen Dimitrov at an international conference on wages organized by the farmers' chapter of CITUB with support from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

For comparison, wages for the same work are 926 euro in Croatia, 632 euro in Bosnia, 771 euro in Montenegro, 1,346 euro in Slovenia and 463 euro in Serbia.

Participating in the forum are 17 representatives of trade unions from six countries.

For 1 lev of value added in agriculture, workers get a mere 0.30 leva to their wage, CITUB economist Lyubislav Kostov said.

In the food industry, the costs per labour unit per hour stand at 4.16 leva and this is a mere 8.1 per cent of the operating costs, according to CITUB's Institute for Social and Trade Union Studies.

According to this Institute's figures, the difference between work pay in Bulgaria and the other EU member states varies between 50 and 80 per cent for the new members and 3 to 10 times for the old members.

Plamen Dimitrov said that the EU funding flowing into the agriculture sector distorts the market. From close to 15 billion leva, 11 billion leva went to grain producers. This concentrates huge resources in the hands of very few and stands in the way of fair pay and the development of the entire sector, he added.

Svetla Vassileva of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions said that the organization will work towards an increase of wages in the sector by 42 per cent and increase of employment by 15 per cent. She also said that close to 40 per cent of farm workers are in the shadow economy and raising the wages will help bring part of it to light.