The SSM association of unions strongly criticized the proposals for new laws that are proposed in an urgent procedure before the Parliament, to facilitate the large Bechtel highway project. One of the laws would allow the company to ask for more than 8 hours of overtime per week from its workers and more than 190 hours per year.

The intent here is to humiliate the Macedonian workers, take away their dignity and make them slaves in theor own country for the benefit of foreign companies and corporations. Not only are the money of Macedonian workers, as taxpayers, syphoned off to foreign companies, but now companies like Bechtel will be allowed to overwork and exhaust the workers, SSM said in a statement.