SDSM: Levica did not vote for €600 minimum wage
SDSM says Levica deputies were absent and did not support the bill for a €600 minimum wage, calling the party 'remote-controlled'.
SDSM accused the Levica MPs of not supporting a proposed minimum wage of €600 in parliament, saying the party's deputies were absent from the chamber and did not cast a single vote — an absence that, SDSM noted, occurred on the World Day for Decent Work.
According to SDSM, the MPs from VMRO-OKG, ZNAM and VLEN also did not vote in favour, and deputies from DUI were not present in the chamber. SDSM said only its own MPs and those of the governing coalition backed the higher minimum.
At a press briefing, Bogdanka Kuzeska of SDSM framed the vote as a test of political commitments and quoted Levica’s own programme to question the party’s record: "This is not some procedure. This is proof. What does Levica's Programme say? Here, in Levica's programme they say they stand on the side of the dispossessed. That workers' rights are worthless and that they will defend them. That they are the only authentic party for which the advancement of labour is an absolute priority," she said.
Kuzeska recalled promises she said Levica made before the elections: a minimum wage equal to two-thirds of the union consumption basket; a median wage; payment from the first to the seventh of the month; double daily allowances on weekends and public holidays; and abolition of the privilege for salaries above €10,000. When the law for a €600 minimum wage came to a vote, she noted, Levica did not vote for it.
She also criticised what she called empty rhetoric and symbolic gestures: "A worker does not pay the bills with slogans and with fake programmes. He does not fill his shopping basket with a press release. If a party that swears by the worker does not vote for a minimum wage, it is not a left party. It is a remote-controlled party," Kuzeska said.
SDSM presented the episode as proof, in its view, that some parties' public commitments to workers do not translate into parliamentary support for concrete measures. The party used the vote to underline its own backing for the €600 minimum and to cast doubt on Levica's credibility on labour issues.
Photo: press material from the event
