The decision on the minimum wage of 1,000 marks, and the ban on working on Sundays for commercial establishments caused reactions from employers, businessmen, and also some local and cantonal authorities. After the Tuzla Canton, the Zenica-Doboj Canton also has an identical attitude about the non-working Sunday.
The City of Zenica and the Municipality of Maglaj were among the first to start the procedure for requesting an exemption, and other local communities could follow them. And while on the one hand, as the opponents of this decision claim, there are economic reasons, on the other hand it is a question of workers’ rights, he writes Federalna.ba.
Initiatives for exemption from the application of the article of the Law on internal trade, that is, non-working Sundays, were sent to the address of the City Administration of Zenica from several commercial entities. Among them are the managers of Zenica’s City Center, which operates over 140 facilities. They claim that due to the non-working Sunday, their income has been reduced because citizens meet their needs in shops in Doboj and East Sarajevo.
“Such a ban on working on Sundays puts the City of Zenica in a disadvantageous position compared to neighboring administrative units in the Republic of Srpska, where shops operate without restrictions, which has a negative impact on the local economy,” the City Center stated, among others.
Although it was expected that the request for an exemption would be sent to the Government of the Federation, it will, however, wait for some time after wider consultations with businessmen, the Association of Employers, and the Trade Union of Shop Workers have been carried out. However, the position of Mayor Fuad Kasumović (BHI-KF) is clear:
“The city of Zenica needs a working week. We don’t have Baščaršija or any picnic spots, the city of Zenica is the third city in the Federation and is dead on Sundays. Traffic fell, everything fell. I think that this, like the minimum wage, was done ‘over the knee’, that’s not how it’s done. It is a great danger to create two economic systems in Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
In the meantime, other local communities have expressed interest in abolishing the non-working Sunday. One of them is the Municipality of Maglaj. While they are preparing the decision, they expect a unified position to be adopted at the cantonal level.
“I think it is a more effective and faster measure with a greater burden, and I will be happy to sign it if there is an initiative from the ZDK Government.” We still stand by the position that we will collect information, if it is to the detriment of our businessmen – we will send a request”, says Maid Suljaković, head of Maglaj Municipality (SDA).
The Ministry of Economy of the ZDK says that the negative consequences are still adding up, especially because after the non-working week, the decree on the minimum wage of 1,000 KM was also issued.
“Until now, the non-working week and the minimum wage have caused great protests not only by businessmen, but also by the chief and the mayor. We think that the non-working Sunday is nothing but a blow to the economy of the Federation, because it is discrimination that we have one law in one part of Bosnia and Herzegovina”, says Samir Šibonjić, Minister of Economy of the ZDK (NES).
The position of the line federal minister Amir Hasičević has been known from before that there was no decline in fiscal turnover in December 2024 and that these are political decisions. They have an almost identical attitude in the trade and service workers’ union, which is against the abolition of the non-working Sunday.
“There is absolutely no drop in traffic, which, in our opinion, would be the only reasoned basis for the request for exemption. I hope that the Government, in the same way that it wholeheartedly defends the increase in the minimum wage, will also defend the ban on working on Sundays, because it benefits the workers themselves,” says Mersiha Beširović, president of the FBiH Trade and Service Workers’ Union.
And while the Tuzla Canton announces that they will ask the Government of the Federation to review these decisions, it seems that an almost identical request could also come from the Zenica-Doboj Canton. Otherwise, cities and municipalities, obviously, could go with individual requests. Anyway, the final word will be given by the Government of the Federation.
