17.08.2023.
Statement
The Military Trade Union is persistently making malicious statements in an effort to create dissatisfaction among the members of the Serbian Armed Forces by pointlessly criticizing the new solutions designed to regulate salaries in the defence system.
Namely, the amendment to the Rulebook on salaries is the implementation of the previously announced salary increase for members of special units, which the public was informed about months ago. The attempt of the Serbian Military Trade Union to discredit continuous efforts made by the Ministry of Defence in cooperation with the President of the Republic and the Supreme Commander of the Serbian Armed Forces, Aleksandar Vučić, and the Government of the Republic of Serbia is one more in a series of their political actions and is contrary to the goal of protecting workers’ rights, which they allegedly strongly advocate for in public.
The adoption of the Rulebook on salaries, as in all previous cases, has been carried out in full compliance with all rules and regulations and in cooperation with all relevant actors at the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces, as well as government institutions, and the allegation that it has all been done illegally and behind closed doors is malicious and completely untrue.
The purpose of the latest salary increase for members of special units was for the military personnel with lower incomes to receive the biggest increase. The primary focus of these amendments to the Rulebook are professional soldiers and non-commissioned officers, who will receive the biggest pay raise, so the allegation that commanders of special units will benefit the most does not correspond to the truth. The amendments to the Rulebook on salaries prescribe higher salary coefficients, which aim to compensate them, through financial incentive, for all the specifics of serving in those units, such as higher psychological and physical stress and risks to which the members of the most elite units of the Serbian Armed Forces are continuously exposed, especially in situations when the safety of citizens and the territorial integrity of the Republic of Serbia are at risk.
Since the Serbian Military Union publicly emphasizes their cooperation with foreign military unions, it is unclear why, for the sake of getting the full picture, they did not state the salaries of Special Forces in foreign militaries or the ratio between the salaries of Special Forces and other members of the armed forces.
In addition to this salary increase for members of the Serbian Armed Forces’ elite units, we need to point out that in January 2023, the employees of the Serbian Armed Forces received a 25% salary increase, the largest in the entire public sector, and that the total salary increase since 2015 amounts to 86% to 144% depending on the personnel category and the unit they serve in. The Ministry of Defence will continue to further improve the living standards of members of the Serbian Armed Forces in cooperation with the Government of the Republic of Serbia, and the measures taken so far and the established trend clearly indicate that this is imperative for us.
