By: C. R., STA
The Association of Directors of Social Welfare Institutions within the framework of the Community of Social Welfare Institutions of Slovenia demands from the government the introduction of a 700-euro gross monthly bonus to the salaries of directors and other executives from salary group B. The salary supplement is requested primarily because of the broken salary relationships within the institutions, the association announced.
The association demands that the allowance be paid from January 1st, 2023, until the planned reform of the wage system, which, according to them, must urgently eliminate unreasonable wage disparities and ensure a better evaluation of the work of all employees in social welfare institutions.
The president of the association, Iva Soršak, warned that due to the collapse of salary relationships in the last two decades, leading positions in social welfare institutions have become unattractive. At the same time, she points out that they have always supported raising the minimum wage and the wages of individual professional groups.
However, according to the association’s assessment, due to increases in the minimum wage, the ratio between the minimum wage and the director’s salary has decreased from 5.8 to 2.6 since 2006. Directors’ salaries have been unchanged since 2006.
The association has been warning the competent ministries and the government about this issue for five years, and in 2021 it prepared a proposal for changes which, according to their estimates, would “remove anomalies and irregularities in the salaries of directors and which will persist within the framework of the announced reform of the salary system”. These would also be eliminated with a new evaluation of the work of directors of social welfare institutions.
The calls for salary supplements come after the government’s decision to grant a 600-euro gross bonus to judges, and more and more professional groups in the public sector are warning that the government is solving the salary problem only for certain groups. Professional firefighters, municipal officials, soldiers, principals, and judicial workers also called for a salary bonus.