At talks with labour minister Jozef Mihal, U.S. Ambassador to Slovakia Theodore Sedgwick said that U.S. companies welcomed the decision of the Ministry of Labour to halt the extension of force of collective agreements applicable to a whole sector.
“On behalf of the U.S. Government, I’m grateful for changes that will curb corruption and make the labour market more flexible. I appreciate the fact that the comments of the American Chamber of Commerce have been taken into consideration, as it objected to extending collective agreements to companies that didn’t agree to a sector collective agreement in the first place,” said Sedgwick.
Sedgwick also said he wants to address the fact that there is no social security agreement between the two countries, meaning that time spent earning in the U.S. was not calculated to Slovak pensions, and that the same problem applied also to Americans living in Slovakia.
They also agreed on co-operation in the project of the Ministry to deal with the Roma issue, with ministry state secretary Lucia Nicholsonova saying the project of U.S. Steel Kosice promoting Roma jobs could act as an example.