Justice and Public Administration Minister Ivan Malenica said in the parliament on Monday the new law on wages in government and public services was a turning point in the management of human resources and creation of an efficient and professional public administration, while the opposition said it was incomplete.

The law is designed to introduce the principle of equal pay for equal work, a system of rewards for employees and evaluation of their performance, he said.

The law introduces a wage supplement of up to 30% based on efficiency. The best assessment, “excellent”, will warrant a wage increase for 5% of employees while the second best assessment, “particularly successful”, will warrant an increase for 15% of government and public service employees, he said.

On the other hand, employees whose performance is assessed as “satisfactory” will not get promotion points while those whose performance is assessed as unsatisfactory will be fired, the minister said.

“The existing system, introduced more than 30 years ago, has around 2,500 job categories with more than 560 various entitlements, and this bill introduces a single payroll and 16 pay brackets with coefficients ranging from 0.9 to 8,” Malenica said while presenting the bill.

Opposition slams bill as ‘incomplete, too general’

The opposition described the bill on wages in government and public services as incomplete, too general and sloppily written.

They noted that its implementation would depend on numerous government regulations that were yet to make the law complete and that its entry into force could be expected as late as 1 January 2025.

“We have been waiting for the law 20 years and we still do not know how the wage system in government and public services will look like because coefficients and rewards and job classification criteria are to be subsequently determined by regulations,” said Mozemo MP Jelena Milos.

Damir Bajs (Reformists/Focus) said that court employees who have been on strike for weeks should be told clearly that the adoption of the new law will postpone their pay rise from 1 January 2024 to 1 January 2025.

“If the law is adopted in September, the adoption of government regulations will take another six months, after which six more months will be needed for public administration officials to adopt internal rules,” Bajs said.

SDP MP Arsen Bauk said the law was being described as a big novelty but would not bring any major changes.

“I had fears that the law will prevent the prime minister from intervening in certain cases and solving problems like Superman because that would mean that the system is well-established but now that I see how many instruments there are in the law for the government to determine wages with regulations, I’m no longer concerned,” Bauk said in an ironic remark.

Vesna Nadj (Social Democrats) believes that the proposed rewards system is discriminatory because the share of employees who can get the two highest grades is set at 20%, with Katarina Peovic (Workers Front/HSS) saying some would continue to be privileged.

HDZ: Law opportunity to improve system

HDZ MP Marija Jelkovac said she was saddened by the opposition’s comments because objections were being made the whole time about the situation in government and public services not being good and employees leaving, adding that the bill offered an opportunity to improve the system.