Will Macedonia retaliate in relation to the non-working week? The pressures from the employers are increasing, and the Government does not come out with a concrete position. This kind of behavior has an appeasing effect on the business, which no longer hides the fact that it would prefer to erase this hard-earned labor right.
And while Europe widely introduces a four-day work week in order to save even the few able-bodied population from "burnout", the bosses in the country forget that their main resource - people, are significantly different from other elements in the production process.
Foreign experts have been warning for a long time about the demise of the "working time from - to" approach. For them, the idea of ​​a five-day work week and the "weekend job" will eventually become obsolete.
After almost three years after the law was passed, citizens and merchants "made a truce" with the non-working week, which initially covered more than 90 percent of the workers. Unofficial figures showed that turnover from the non-working week spilled over into Saturday and Monday. The stores within the gas stations, which work around the clock, also work very well. The increased turnover from the weekly shopping of the merchants allows them to pay the compensation of 2 percent of the total income realized in the previous year to the Budget without any problem. The funds are intended for the Development and Human Capital Fund. The workers, on the other hand, who are engaged to work on this day, receive the deserved daily wages, and there are fewer and fewer complaints about their bosses, confirmed by the Trade Union, as well as by the State Labor Inspectorate.
And when it seemed that things got on track, the lobbying and pressures of part of the merchants began, which caused two illegal breakthroughs by inserting new shops or activities that "had" to work on Sundays. The "Free Press" has already warned several times that the appetites of other industries are also likely to increase, after the wholehearted "breaking the road" for a 60-hour work week for corridors 8 and 10D. Civic activists have expressed their fear that any industry branch will be able to abuse the changes in the Labor Law by justifying that "their operations are of strategic importance", a formulation that was used for the construction of the two corridors. Thus, the original noble idea, according to Kristina Ampeva, president of Loud Textiles, created "a Frankensteinian law with more than 47 businesses that can operate on Sundays, plus malls. The last in the series of activities that wants to work on Sunday is the information technology sector.
Before asking anything, employers should ask workers if they want to work on Sundays or stay home with their families? A 2021 study that followed Swedish workers for a decade, for example, found that working shorter hours reduced stress, burnout and negative emotions. Another 2017 study found that cutting work hours by 25 percent improved sleep and reduced stress, while research from the 90s found that working just six hours a day improved workers' family life.
Is it normal to open a large market with only six employees? Is it normal that no bank is open after 16pm? Is it normal for only two caregivers to take care of a group of twenty children in a kindergarten? There are no drivers, no traders, no doctors, one clerk serves several counters, pensioners are publicly sought to fill the gaps even for bar work. And instead of being supported, Sunday non-working is constantly expanding and stretching. The same thing happens during the holidays.
The government must cut down such a wish list. There must be no compromise, because we will be left without workers, especially since there are activities that are desperately looking for people to work for months.