December 11, 2017

The Appellate Court has confirmed the decision on Kadoro Otto in favour of male and female workers

The Appellate Court in Skopje has rejected the complaint filed by the sued employer DPCT KADORO OTTO DOOEL export-import Kriva Palanka, and has confirmed the decision of the first instance court which adopted the lawsuit initiated by workers, thereby implying an obligation to the defendant to pay male and female workers a total amount of 1.430.856,00 MKD for outstanding wages and benefits.

Following information provided by employees of KADORO OTTO, the Helsinki Committee for Human rights initiated this case in March 2017. Regarding this case, the first step was to submit a request to the State Labour Inspectorate who found that the employer did make payment of wages and social benefit contributions for its employees for December 2016, and failed to make payment for January 2017. The inspector issued an order to the employer to amend this irregularity in 8 days; however the employer failed to respect the deadline. The Helsinki Committee requested for extension of the procedure and urged the State Labour Inspectorate to initiate an infringement procedure against the employer. After completing an additional inspection oversight and the identified factual situation, the State Labour Inspectorate issued against the employer an infringement order with a mandatory fine, which was duly paid by the employer.

Since by the end of March 2017 the employer failed to make payment of the wages and benefits for the month of February 2017, 105 employees of KADORO OTTO with the support of the Helsinki Committee decided to take the employer to court for failing to make payment of their wages and benefits for January and February 2017. In May 2017, after the employer made late payments of the January wage and benefits, its employees initiated a court procedure against the employer for failing to make payment of the February 2017 wages and benefits. After it processed the lawsuit, the KrivaPalanka Basic Court passed a decision adopting the lawsuit filed by male and female workers, which was also confirmed by t