Although the trade union organisations do not have a common position on the amount of the minimum wage, we are interested in legally regulating this issue through a tripartite agreement, if possible by this summer, Sanader told reporters after the meeting.
The bill, expected to be completed before the end of the spring sitting of the parliament, should deal with a gap between so-called old and new pensioners, those going into retirement after January 1, 1999, whose pensions in 2009 will be 50 per cent lower than those of old pensioners.
Sanader said that the government supported the trade unions' proposal that employers paying additional insurance premiums for workers should be exempt from taxation.
The finance minister says that the proposal is financially viable and should be made possible by amending the Income Tax Act in the process of adjusting Croatian legislation with the EU acquis communautaire, the prime minister said.
Trade union representative Stjepan Kolaric said that at the meeting the trade unions expressed their displeasure with high lawyer fees, stressing that poor people had been deprived of the right to legal representation as a result of unilaterally increased fees.
Sanader said that a bill on free legal assistance would be proposed soon, and that the common position of the government and the trade unions was that representatives of trade unions and employers should join in dealing with the problem of lawyer fees within the Ministry of Justice.