ZMOS and SK8 Understand Needs of Social Workers, Can't Afford New Deal Right Now

Bratislava, March 14 (TASR) - The Slovak Towns and Village Association (ZMOS) and Slovak Self-Governing Regions (SK8) understand the needs of social service workers, but they'll be able to sign a collective agreement with them only after a suitable way is found to secure adequate financing for regional and local authorities, the two organisations told TASR in response to Thursday's (March 13) protest by social service workers against low salaries. "The state promised to compensate local and regional authorities for their financial costs regarding the remuneration of public administration employees and salary hikes for employees in education. If this happens, the ZMOS leadership will subsequently submit a proposal to the ZMOS Council aimed at tasking the chair with signing a new 2025-26 collective agreement," ZMOS chair Jozef Bozik told TASR. Bozik pointed out that towns and villages are currently bearing the loss of several hundreds of thousands of euros in their budgets as well as the impacts of financial consolidation, which lowers their proceeds from shared state/local taxes by 1 percent. SK8 confirmed for TASR that it's been in intensive negotiations with the Finance Ministry on financing regional authorities. "Our goal is to achieve sustainable and fair conditions for employees within the realistic scope of the financial options available," said SK8. mf/df