Members of the Federation of Trade Unions of Macedonia on Tuesday blocked all vehicles from reaching parliament, demanding higher minimum wages. Photo: EPA/GEORGI LICOVSKI.
North Macedonia’s Prime Minister, Hristijan Micskoski, on Thursday defended a ruling VMRO DPMNE party MP who published a video of a trade union leader and his underage children entering a car, deeming it “public criticism” that the union boss should get used to.
Slobodan Trendafilov, the head of the Federation of Trade Unions of Macedonia, SSM, accused VMRO DPMNE legislator Dafina Stojanovska on Wednesday of publishing the video of his children as part of a campaign to intimidate him, amid ongoing union protests demanding higher wages.
Mickoski, also head of the ruling VMRO DPMNE party, told media that “we are public figures and we are used to it. It is regretful that other public figures are not used to public criticism”.
Stojanovska published the video on Tuesday on her Facebook account. In it, Trendafilov can be seen escorting his children, whose faces were covered in the footage, to a waiting car. She insisted that the footage showed the union leader was misusing an “official” vehicle for his private needs.
“Don’t listen to what he says. Look what he does,” reads the inscription below the video. Its publication on Facebook coincided with the day when the SSM blocked roads leading to parliament in protest against legislators’ high spending on transport, while workers’ demands for higher salaries fall on deaf ears. The blockade forced the MPs to walk to the parliament building.
On Wednesday, Trendafilov said the video was a personal attack and an attempt to intimidate him using his children, adding that he is undeterred – and blockades staged in support of higher wages will continue.
“For these kind of things, normal governments in normal countries fall,” he added.
The head of the Federation of Trade Unions of Macedonia, SSM, Slobodan Trendafilov [C]. Photo: SSM
He complained that attempts to intimidate him had gone on for over a year, urging the Interior Ministry and prosecution to take action against the MP for involving his children in the alleged campaign. He also demanded that the MP reveal the source of the footage.
But, following his press conference, pro-government MPs doubled down on their attack, insisting that Trendafilov should resign from the SSM leadership for his misuse of an “official” vehicle belonging to the SSM “as if it was his private property”.
For almost two years, the SSM, the country’s biggest and oldest federation of trade unions, has been pushing for higher wages, insisting that the increased cost of living has become unbearable. It wants the minimum monthly wage raised from 370 to 600 euros and an immediate increase in all public and private-sector wages of 100 euros.
Since the start of February, the SSM has boosted its demands by staging protests and blockades.
Both the government and employers have called the SSM’s demands totally unrealistic.