The unions have declared themselves against the idea that civil servants should start paying their respective part of the insurance contributions, which are now covered entirely by the state budget, reports the Bulgarian National Radio.
In special statements sent to the chairman of the parliamentary social committee Denitsa Sacheva from GERB-SDF - from KITUB and CT "Podkrepa" express their disagreement with the draft amendments to the Social Security Code submitted by the PP-DB, which stipulates that this will happen in stages over the next six years.
In their reasons, the submitters point out that there is currently inequality between civil servants and those under the Labor Code, who pay insurance contributions together with their employers in a ratio of 40/60. According to the deputies, the proposed measure will make the pension model more stable.
From the Trade Union of Administrative Employees "Podkrepa" categorically do not support the proposed bill and defined it as an unacceptable mechanism, which essentially means reducing the salaries of employees.
The president of the union Kremena Atanasova announced that the scope of the project includes nearly 80,000 people: "First, their salaries should be increased on a targeted basis, so that their net income does not decrease, and the motivations of this bill state that gradually the social security contributions will begin to be paid by the employees and they would be covered by the standard increases. But there are no such standard increases in the administration. No one guarantees an increase in salaries in the administration and they have been frozen for years".
The Confederation of Bulgarian Trade Unions pointed out that when the current procedure for providing social security to civil servants was introduced, their gross salaries were reduced by the amount of social security contributions at their expense. There are also a number of restrictions for these workers. For example, they do not have a "long service" class, nor the right to an effective strike.
Asya Goneva from the Confederation of Bulgarian Trade Unions (CITUB) called on the deputies: "I do not understand why there is this aggression towards civil servants and why Bulgarian business, supported by some members of parliament, is so against the state getting involved with the insurance of its own employees. Let us respect the work of civil servants".