I propose three things to the government: 1. Abolish student services - there is a lot of talk today about students being lazy and studying until the age of 28, with huge enrolments at universities, wasting huge amounts of public money on tuition fees. Employers exploit students to the hilt through student services, and they have to keep renewing their status indefinitely because employers simply do not want to pay their fees. This hits the country in several places: - less money for pensions - too many people studying because everyone is studying - money is wasted on tuition fees, which in reality are only paid to facilitate student work - students are getting fed up with not getting jobs Abolish student work as a separate form of work, and let students compete with the rest of the workforce in the labour market. This is countered with the spurious argument that students cannot compete in the normal labour market because they cannot work 40 hours a week. Most students already work 40 hours a week, and those employers with whom it has been possible to agree on part-time working hours would continue to accept such agreements. There is also talk that this will reduce the competitiveness of students, but the correct term would be to equalise it, because today, no one can compete with the student as a labour provider, and absolutely all parties, except employers, are being squeezed. If we are all to have equal opportunities to get a job, then there must be only one form of employment, which is where I come to my second proposal: 2. Abolish fixed-term work. This was the government's original proposal to overhaul employment law and it is the best one to date. That should be the ultimate goal - that there is only one form of employment, and the agreements go from there. Both trade unions and employers will probably accept some balanced proposal on such a law. 3. Of course, the ultimate interest is increased employment, but at the moment the main obstacle to this is that employers are not hiring because of the uncertainty in the market, because they will not be able to get rid of a worker if business is bad. I am sad that this is the situation, but easier redundancies are necessary if we want to increase employment. After all, an employer who wants to get rid of someone will get rid of that person, however rigid the law may be. Easier dismissals should be designed to encourage employment, and I think there is a fourth proposal that makes sense: 4. A severance pay fund. Severance pay causes a great reluctance to employ, so I propose that a law be passed that all employers should contribute every month, in addition to the rest of their contributions to a state-regulated fund, to a severance pay fund, from which workers who are left on the road then receive severance pay. This is a win-win situation - workers will not be left without severance pay, it will be easier to employ them, it will be easier for employers, for the state, for workers and for everyone.
In addition, I would also propose to the government to increase the number of inspectorates for illegal work, because I know from my own life many cases of craftsmen who simply cannot compete on the market because their business is being taken away from them by those who work illegally. In the same way, we should increase the number of inspectorates for illegal renting, because in Ljubljana and elsewhere, hand on heart, there are not half as many empty flats as there are registered ones, because the owners do not want to pay tax. Inspectors should be paid by merit and their basic rate should be low to encourage the best possible work. In this way, inspectorates would detect a huge amount, inspectors would still have high salaries, and it would also be in the interests of the country.