Trade-union and employers organizations met Monday with the leadership of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), the dominant party in the three-party ruling coalition, to discuss the law-making priorities, the distribution of the 2008 budget surplus and the 2009 draft budget framework.

At the meeting, the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB) insisted that in 2009 the social and health insurance contributions be shared among employees, employers and the State in a ratio of 7:11:12. CITUB President Zhelyazko Hristov noted that if this ratio is adopted, employees and employers will be able to keep 150 million leva each.

The employers' organizations insisted on a ratio of 6:10:12, with a reduction of one share for both employers and employees.

Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski said that the 2009 draft budget has been prepared on the basis of an 8:10:12 ratio of sharing the social and health insurance contributions among employees, employers and the State. He said that the options proposed on Monday will be considered as well.

The CITUB also insists that the national monthly minimum wage in 2009 be increased to 260 leva, instead of 240 leva as planned, and that it be pegged to the poverty threshold. The minimum wage currently stands at 220 leva. The Confederation also wants to see the passage of legislation on settlement of collective labor disputes and the right to association, which is not regulated in Bulgaria, before the end of the life of the incumbent Parliament next summer.

BSP leadership member Maya Manolova, MP of Coalition for Bulgaria, confirmed that the adoption of a new Settlement of Collective Labor Disputes Act will be assigned priority and that the trade unions' proposals to initiate legislation regulating the right to association will be considered.

The Podkrepa Confederation of Labour proposed the establishment of a guarantee fund with the voluntary pension funds. Podkrepa President Konstantin Trenchev argued that he has information of at least one voluntary pension fund which has acquired instruments that may prove loosing. He noted that his Confederation also espouses the idea of establishment of a food control agency on the basis of existing structures.

Source: BTA