site.btaGovernment, Employers, Unions Disagreed on 2016 Public Social Insurance Budget

Government, Employers, Unions Disagreed on 2016 Public Social Insurance Budget

Sofia, October 29 (BTA) - The National Council for Tripartite Cooperation (NCTC) failed to reach agreement on the 2016 public social insurance budget. Summing up Thursday's proceedings, Deputy Prime Minister and Labour and Social Policy Minister Ivailo Kalfin said at the NCTC meeting that "there can be no talk of support for the budget."

Employers oppose the idea that they should keep paying the benefit for the first three days of sick leave next year, too. Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association Chairman Vasil Velev said at the Council's meeting that the business community cannot support the continued application of this provision because it was introduced as an anti-crisis measure and was supposed to lapse at the end of 2010.

Kalfin said that the issue needs to be addressed in terms of curbing abuses rather than shifting these payments entirely to the National Social Security Institute (NSSI).

Employers also declared themselves against the imposition by administrative order of a 7.5 per cent increase of minimum contributory income (the average negotiated) on the activities in which no agreement has been reached. Velev said that, according to the business community, this increase is miscalculated and the actual figure is 6.2 per cent.

The Deputy PM is of the opinion that the existing minimum contributory income bargaining system is not good and negotiations should start even this year on its change, considering which economic parameters influence the fixing of the thresholds in the activities where there is no agreement. Kalfin recalled his position on the need to strengthen bipartite dialogue and the proposal that trade unions and employers should bargain on sector-specific minimum wages.

The Podkrepa Confederation of Labour declared itself against the freeze of benefit payments in the draft public social insurance budget. Podkrepa President Dimiter Manolov argued that they cannot back a budget which mentions the word "unchanged" all too often.

The minimum daily amount of the unemployment benefit will be unchanged yet again at 7.20 leva, Manolov specified. In his words, this makes some 150 leva monthly or just 50 per cent of the poverty line. Podkrepa proposes that the minimum daily unemployment benefit should be at least doubled.

The Confederation also urged for a revision of the guaranteed minimum income, on the basis of which the monthly welfare benefits are calculated. The guaranteed monthly minimum income amounts to 65 leva and has not been adjusted since 2009. "There is a pressing need for its update, and arguments that it is extravagantly high are cynical," Manolov said.

According to Podkrepa, the child care benefit paid between the child's first and second birthday must be at least equivalent to the minimum wage.