CONFEDERATION OF AUTONOMOUS
TRADE UNIONS OF SERBIA

A study visit to Norway, within POSTEN Project, was realized from March 2 to 4. Representatives of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia (CATUS) and Romanian CNSL Cartel ALFA exchanged information with the trade union Solidaritet Norge in the field of posting workers. The aim of the visit was to transfer knowledge and experience, as well as to get acquainted with good practices in advocacy and protection of the rights of posted workers.
The meetings presented the challenges and importance of information for workers and employers and exchanged information on the implementation of the revised Directive EC/957/2018 and the Enforcement Directive EC/67/2014.
During the visit, the role of trade unions in European labor mobility was discussed and the importance of transnational cooperation in this area and the possibility of open trade union membership in order to better protect workers within the EU were pointed out.
Cooperation with the Labor Inspectorate is very important, as well as exchanging good practices and further improving the IMI system, where EU candidate countries would also participate. In addition to the information needed by unions and posted workers, improving employers' knowledge of referral conditions and procedures in accordance with the law, as well as remuneration, social security and OSH standards are necessary to avoid doubts and misapplications.

On March 9-10, 2022 in Belgrade Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia, in cooperation with the European Trade Union Institute, organized a seminar entitled „European Works Council for Candidate Countries“. Seminar was followed through the Zoom platform by the representatives of trade union confederations from North Macedonia, Montenegro and Turkey, while our participants, trade union representatives from companies, whose headquarters are in the EU, took part in person.
CATUS representative Saša Torlaković, President of the Construction and Industry of Construction Materials Workers of Serbia, opened the seminar. European Works Councils are bodies representing employees of multinational companies in the country. Councils provide company management with information and advice on business, long term plans and investments and all other important decisions at the European level that could affect the number and structure of employees, application of technology, restructuring, ..etc. Information and consultation are key functions of works councils while counselling often stays on the sidelines and is used only after the company restructuring. Numerous research show that representatives of the European Works Councils are pretty much excluded from the procedure of strategic making of corporate decisions while there are possibilities for trade union representatives to be included into the European Works Councils, which should be insisted upon.
Legal framework for the functioning of the European Works Councils represents a Directive on the establishment of European Works Council, passed in (94/45/EU) and revised in 2009 (2009/38/EU), whose transposition into Serbian legislation was planned to happen at the end of 2020.
The goal of this seminar was to clarify to the trade union representatives from candidate countries the content of the Directive, its practical implementation and challenges in its transposition into national legislation. Through group work participants were able to get information about how works councils function in practice in EU member states and how they are similar/different to/from trade union. Seminar was organised with the support of the European Union.

European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) called upon women to get unionised so that they would jointly fight for more rights and better position of women in the society.
On the occasion of March 8 – International Women’s Day, ETUC stresses that it will continue exerting huge pressure for the respect of women’s rights in the whole of Europe, but it also calls upon women to get unionised in order to get a better starting position.
‘We call all working women to act - unite for the sake of a better deal; obtain more equality in the world of work; eliminate gender pay gap; secure protection from harassment at work place; introduce OHS measures adjusted to job specificity, more just chances for promotion or more balance between life and work for both men and women’.
ETUC also referred to war on the territory of Ukraine, which cannot leave anybody indifferent.
‘These days our thoughts are with workers whose lives are being destroyed and I am sure that I can speak on everybody’s behalf when I say that on the International Women’s Day we ask for peace, justice and democracy’, stated Esther Lynch, ETUC Deputy General Secretary.
Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia and Women’s Section join the ETUC demand to respect peace, justice and democracy in all countries.

Members of the Teachers’ Trade Union of Serbia, Teachers’ Trade Union of Serbia ‘Nezavisnost’ and the Trade Union of Education Workers of Serbia announced a protest on Saturday, March 12, at Nikola Pašić Square in Belgrade.
They informed the Minister of Education, Branko Ružić, about it and invited him to come to the protest in order to get acquainted with the problems of educators related to their social position.
The protest is organized under the slogan "Neither justice - nor money", and members of three representative teachers’ unions want to point out to the catastrophic financial situation of employees in education, says Valentina Ilić, President of the Teachers’ Trade Union of Serbia.
‘Our demands are that employees in education should receive a 15% salary increase by the end of the year, solidarity aid be paid to us, vacation bonus and a hot meal be regulated.’
For the last two and a half years, educators have been suffering due to the pandemic. They were additionally burdened and they were not rewarded for that.
In January inflation was 8.7%, which means that the pay rise of 7% didn’t really affect us.
‘The average salary in education is below the national average’, states Ilić, some of the reasons that motivated educators to take to the streets.
‘We were thinking about organizing a warning strike or even a legal strike, but as they have been thanking us since the beginning of the pandemic for working responsibly, we decided to hold a protest on Saturday because a lot has been missed so far and we did not want to additionally contribute to it.
‘Besides that, we believe that a large number of colleagues will join us, since it is a non-working day,’ Ilić points out.
She notes this protest is just an introduction to the activities that the unions are planning in the upcoming period.
Another protest is announced. It will probably be the responsibility of the new government and the new Minister of Education to deal with it in August or September.

Trade Union of Employees in Science of Serbia organized a protest at Nikola Pašić square. Scientists demand from the state to provide equal pay for equal work and secure jobs for all scientists and researchers.
After they got together, protesters went to the Government building where they submitted their demands.
As they explained, their problems started 11 years ago and they still haven’t been solved. They want steady jobs and equal pay for equal work, as well as better status at faculties and institutes.
At the protest marking the 20th anniversary of the Trade Union of Employees in Science of Serbia, President Đurđica Jovović, Ph.D. stated that scientists were dissatisfied with their status. They had enough of tons of papers they sent the authorities without getting a concrete solution. Above of all, it was shameful of the state with such a huge number of scientific workers to treat them that way.

Today Trade Union Academy of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia has officially started its work through the realization of the first seminar, which was attended by the representatives of the Youth and Women Sections.
The importance and improvement of social dialogue, procedures and phases of collective bargaining, negotiations about the salaries and other benefits covered by the collective agreement, as well as the effects of the pandemic on the labour market and employees’ economic status were the topics at the seminar.
Presenting these important topics, CATUS experts listed normative framework and examples from practice while participants pointed to their experience and asked questions which are important for further trade union work.
Regarding the fact that this is the first seminar within the Trade Union Academy, CATUS Council Secretary Zoran Mihajlović greeted participants and presented the goal and importance of the Project. He proposed that they should first get information about the economic situation in the country, learn more about the methods and tools of trade union struggle in order to imporove employees’ economic and social position in their surrounding and organizations. Mihajlović called upon youth and women to educate and encourage themselves to take part in decision-making process in their organizations and the CATUS.
Seminar, attended by 26 participants, was organized within the Trade Union Academy which is an element of the international Project which the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia is conducting in cooperation with the European Trade Union Confederation. Within the work of Academy eight seminars will be organized in the cities of Serbia. They are aimed at capacity-building of the organization and its members for further activities in newly formed circumstances.
This huge and unique project is of strategic importance, not only for the European Trade Union Confederation and trade union movement, but especially for national trade union confederations. As a result of this project, they will strengthen the capacities of their organizations and members in new conditions and changed industrial relations.
Apart from Trade Union Academy and topics of trade union interest, participants were informed about the activities in creating web portal, digital data base of members and mobile application which will enable more visibility of the organization in public and place the information at members’ disposal, which will increase organization’s efficiency.

At a recent protest, organized by the Autonomous Trade Union of Employees in Pre-School Institutions of Serbia, the activists asked for an urgent establishment of a Work group that will work to solve their problems. There were 5,000 people who first gathered in front of the building of the Ministry of Education and later they went to the Government of Serbia. The protesters carried banner saying ‘We haven’t brought you up to behave like that’ and said that their salaries were 2.5 times lower than the average.
One of the protesters, Marijana Šen, stated that pre-school institutions were handed over to the mercy of local self-governments, but there were also positive examples from Čačak.
‘’There are cities where employees aren’t refunded for travel expenses, vacation bonus or hot meal’’, she pointed out.
Pre-school educators demanded the pay rise from the budgetary reserves of the Republic of Serbia. Other demands are:

• Recognition of adequate co-efficients for the upskilled staff where this hasn’t still been done and change of position of the Ministry of Finance in giving its consent to the increase of mass of resources,
• Payment of hot meal and vacation bonus for those on minimum wage,
• Respect of legal norm for the number of children in a group and easing the work load for the existing human capacities,
• Provision of better conditions for the purchase of apartments, according to the model valid for army, police and young married couples.

Serbian Prime Minister, Ana Brnabić is sure that the company Fiat will stay in Serbia in the following period. She told this to the President of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia, Ljubisav Orbović and representatives of the trade union organization Fiat Automobiles Serbia who initiated the meeting.
This piece of information could reduce the tensions which have circulated lately among the employees in the factory in Kragujevac. Fear about the future and survival of the factory is justified because this year the employees worked only seven days while at the same time they have been invited to work in Slovakia.
Besides President Orbović, meeting in the Government of Serbia was also attended by the President and Vice-President of the trade union organization Fiat Automobiles Serbia, Saša Đorđević and Ivan Ristić.

A year ago when the information about Fiat workers going away from Kragujevac appeared for the first time, there were extreme differences in opinion. Some claimed it was a well paid job in the factory Peugeot-Citroen in Trnava (Slovakia) while others warned that the gesture of Fiat management confirmed their long-standing doubts about the factory in Kragujevac ending its work there.
Now there is no dilemma. The Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of the City of Kragujevac sees this as giving up the production of the new FAS model, which means that the factory will be closed.
Jugoslav Ristić, CATUK President, says if Fiat plans to make workers work for two or three days and posts them to Slovakia at the same time, it is clear there will be no production.
This status of both the factory and workers hasn't changed for a long time. Workers rarely go to work and get minimum wage, which made going to work in Slovakia a decent offer, especially regarding the salary of 850EUR per month, accommodation included.
There are nine workers who accepted to go to Peugeot-Citroen in Trnava to work, but they experienced something completely different, something they were not warned about. They did not sign the employment contract with Fiat, but with an agency. Instead of the salary of 850EUR, they were offered 580EUR for the period of three months until they have finished their training.
According to the Law on Posting of Workers to Work Abroad, worker is entitled to a monthly salary which is higher than an average wage of the host country, as well as to the payment of travel, accommodation and food costs.
As Jugoslav Ristić explains, Fiat would like to find a way to make an elegant exit and stop working completely in Kragujevac.
Faced with the dissatisfaction of workers posted to work in Slovakia, Fiat offered somewhat better conditions to a new group of workers. On the weekend they phoned workers looking for those would go to work to Slovakia for 90 days.

President of Teachers’ Trade Union of Serbia Valentina Ilić asked the Prime Minister Ana Brnabić and Ministers of Education and Finance, Branko Ružić and Siniša Mali for an urgent meeting related to the improvement of economic status of employees in education.
Otherwise, trade union would take all measures of trade union struggle, including strike.
v Ilić pointed to the fact that due to the pay system in the public sector being unorganized, untransparent and unjust and a delay in the implementation of salary bands, state hasn’t expressed good will to take a realistic look at the problem of employees in education, who were brought to the brink of their existence.
“Adopting the Law on Budget in 2022 and planned increase of 7% for the employees in education left educators without a real pay increase and when inflation and 20% price increase of basic supplies and energy substances are added to this, it is clear that salaries are actually lower ”, says Ilić.
Trade union asks the Government to increase labour cost for all employees in the education system by additional 15% till the end of 2022 and pay out New Year awards till March.
Trade union demands equality of labour cost for employees in high education and the one in pre-school, elementary and secondary school education; payment of the hot meal bonus and vacation bonus for all employees, as well as better conditions for the purchase of apartments (the same model as for the army, police and young married couples).

More informed workers are – less their rights are violated!
Research shows that labour rights are closely connected to the violation of rights and active struggle for rights.
Workers are relatively passive when it comes to looking for and checking information on labour rights while they are more active when they think their rights are violated or when they are not sure which rights they have. Most often they search information about basic rights, such as annual leave, salary, working hours and other rights, and the most rarely about trade union organization and right to strike.
They usually do not recognize injustice. Very often they are not aware of their submissive position and don’t believe that change is possible.
Timely and regular information, as well as raising the awareness on positive outcome and influence of trade union work and struggle, are important in debunking those prejudices and improving labour rights in general.
Having in mind the research, trade union members are better informed about their rights; they know the value of information and where trade union is active; violations of labour rights are more rare and workers are more inclined to fight for their rights. Taking this into account, trade union role is huge.
That is why Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia will realize an international project through which it will improve the dissemination of information and persist in its efforts to educate and raise the awareness of the importance of trade union organization and its role, as well as the importance of being informed about the rights.
We think that on this way it is necessary to better disseminate inside information that will serve to form data base, modern internet portal and mobile application ‘e-trade union’, which will bring members closer to the Confederation and all other levels of trade union organization.
Thanks to digitalization just with ‘a single click’ each member will be able to reach all necessary laws, regulations and initiatives which trade unions send to the government, employers and local self-governments, as well as all necessary documents and decisions that are important for trade union organization and its members.
‘Trade Union Academy’ is a part of the project through which members will be educated on numerous topics. Work of the Academy will result in the manual on collective bargaining and social dialogue.
What’s more, digitalization will strengthen the presence of the CATUS on social media. We will become more active and closer to our members.
Through social networks we will present new applications, e-trade union and ‘Labour Rights for You’, the last one being suitable not only for the young finishing secondary schools or university studies and entering labour market, but also those with work experience who want to additionally consolidate their knowledge.
When workers know their rights, the first precondition of the change has been fulfilled.
We wish to stir up members’ wish to be more active and give personal contribution to the improvement of workers’ rights and position.
This way trade union becomes closer to everyone regardless of the membership status and ‘jumps over’ physical distance.
By providing information we contribute to democratisation and dissemination of knowledge to all workers about their rights and possibilities of activism, approaching them to trade union organizations, affiliation and activism.

At the protest in front of the Government of Serbia, held on January 31, 2022, Trade Union of Employees in Science and Research Institutions of Serbia presented their demands. Namely, they asked for equal pay of all employees in science and all those working with fixed-term contracts to sign new ones in line with the law. Demands were submitted to the Government and the deadline for responses is February 7.
Also, trade union demands from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development to present its plan with co-efficients till November at the latest. According to this plan, starting from January 1,2023 salaries in the sector of science will be calculated and paid, which would provide for the legal principle of ‘equal pay –equal work’.
Milan Ivanov, Ph.D, senior scientific counsellor at the Institute for Medical Research, says that the next session of the trade union committee will be organized on February 8, where the representatives of all Serbian institutes will make the decision on further steps unless trade union demands have been met. He explains that scientists are faced with the violation of the Labour Law, where equal pay for equal work is guaranteed.
In science there are six different pay levels for a single work place. Trade union demands the respect of the principle equal pay – equal work, equal education level, equal pay. As the trade union was told that there weren’t enough resources for everybody to be transferred to the highest category, they accepted that scientists in three lowest categories be transferred to the category A3 which is the third in rank and to wait till 2023 when the pay would be made equal.

DECENT WORK CAMPAIGN Trade Union of Employees in Science and Research Institutions of Serbia started the campaign ‘Decent Work in Science’.
‘We want to encourage all employees in science to join us in the fight for our demands. We think that education and science are key for our country, but we can’t call upon young people to get education, choose to become scientists, stay in Serbia and found their families if working in science already lacks decency and secure conditions,’ say trade unionists.

While in the third quarter of the last year employees in the EU worked 37 hours on average, an average work week in Serbia lasted 43.5 hours, which is the longest on the old continent.
Apart from Serbia, employees in Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and Poland also worked more than 40 hours. According to the Eurostat analysis, work week in Montenegro lasted 44 hours on average and 40.7 in North Macedonia.
CATUS Council Vice-President Duško Vuković explained that there was a tendency to minimize employees' importance and efficiency. This shows that employers don't really respect the laws of this country regarding not only regular, but also overtime work. He also added that every country should respect its workers and shouldn't allow them to work longer than what is stipulated by law.
According to Mario Reljanović, legal expert from the Institute of Comparative Law, it is not uncommon that Serbian citizens work longer hours than in other countries, which proves that the salaries are quite low and people need to work a lot to earn decent living. People tend to do more than one job or work overtime on a job they already have. Although overtime work should be someting extraordinary, there is even a six-day work week, which more often becomes a rule.
In Serbia there are 500,000 to 600,000 unregistered working hours. Employers keep records, but reality is very often different from the one in the records because many people work longer hours than registered. Reljanović explains that in the majority of European countries working hours go from 35 to 38 and some are even thinking about introducing four-day work week.
There is regulation saying that anybody can work 130% of working hours, which is practically additional 52 hours per week, but it refers to work for multiple employers, not just one. One can work 40 hours a week for an employer and 30% more for another. It remains yet to be seen whether we are more productive than those who spend less time at work place.

Trade union organisation Zastava Arms warns that the coronavirus pandemic decimated the number of factory workers, which damages the production process. The number of the infected is increasing daily causing many workers to take a sick leave.
At the moment there are 330 infected workers out of the total of 2,450. The infection has lately exploded. Every day between 30 and 50 workers get infected. The biggest number of infected workers work directly in the production because of which the organization of production process is threatened.
Due to the ubrupt excalation of the infection, which slows down the delivery of goods and the deposit of funds, Trade Union will demand the help of the Ministry of Defence in these extraordinary circumstances in order to maintain workers’ financial position which is already quite difficult.

Members and activists of the CATUS Youth Section made a series of short videos in order to bring trade union and Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia closer to the public. Playlist ‘Trade Union from Youth Perspective’ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmmiq0O7ui-Q6KAU-sYQzb4PGKcuKGiJJ contains their short answers covering issues such as: ‘Why trade union?’, ‘Trade union and youth’, ‘We learn about labour rights’ and others. The intention is to make young people’s voices heard, as well as their positions and needs. These videos can be used for the presentation of trade union in schools and various meetings aimed at promoting trade union and opening discussion. All videos are on social network accounts of the CATUS Youth Section. This work was supported by the Olof Palme International Center within the project ‘Strengthening CATUS Youth Section’.

At the end of December 2021 in the Ministry of Culture of Serbia branch collective agreement, covering cultural institutions founded by the Republic of Serbia, Autonomous Province and local self-government unit, was signed. The agreement was signed by the Autonomous Trade Union of Culture; Branch Trade Union of Culture, Art and Media – NEZAVISNOST; Confederation of Free Trade Unions and Government of Serbia.
This agreement regulates more precisely the rights, obligations and responsibilities within the employment relationship, as well as relationship between signatories of this agreement. In line with the law, company collective agreement provides employees with more rights and better working conditions than the rights stipulated by this agreement.
New branch collective agreement was enforced on January 1, 2022 and it will be valid for 3 years.
On the behalf of Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia, branch collective agreement was signed by Dragana Đorđević, trade union president. On the behalf of the Government of Serbia, it was signed by Maja Gojković, the Minister of Culture. The agreement becomes effective the day after it has been published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia.

Teachers’ Trade Union of Serbia is dissatisfied because the amendments to five laws covering education were introduced without the union being informed about it. In the letter to the Minister of Education, Branko Ružić, President of this Trade Union, Valentina Ilić explained the union was not even asked for an opinion.
The union believes it is impermissible to propose amendments to the legislation in education, which directly affect workers' position, without a public debate and trade union participation. As the letter points out, what is the most worrying is the amendment to the Article 31 of the Law on Elementary Education which says that joint lessons for the students from the fifth to the eighth grade are also possible.
However, the union thinks that mixing students of different age, educational plans and programs will lower the quality of education; disable elementary education from accomplishing its primary goal and cause a huge number of redundancies.
Teachers' Trade Union asks Minister Ružić to withdraw amendments from the parliamentary procedure until the unions have had a chance to express their opinion. Line ministry is criticized for not conducting social dialogue because it is obvious there is no will to solve key problems, which are getting bigger by the day, through negotiations with the union.

This is the last text within the DiDaNet Project, coordinated by Austrian Trade Union Confederation OGB and supported by Austrian Ministry for Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection.
Global digital platforms have led the way in introducing algorithms and artificial intelligence into the world of work. Algorithms, not man, now operate in many spheres of work: from making decisions about choosing new staff to assigning jobs and firing them from work. Bloomberg’s article describing how platform workers lost their jobs thanks to algorithm decisions had excellent readability worldwide, including Serbia, and focused the expert public’s attention on the issue of managing algorithms. What may be less visible at first glance, but extremely important, is that together with the rise of platforms, we have gained new labour regulators who, unnoticed by lawmakers at the national level, have changed the rights of workers working on them.
When algorithms in the world of work make a wrong decision, the workers suffer the consequences, not those who introduced the algorithm. At the same time, algorithms operate in a “black box,” making decisions based on large databases that often contain many prejudices that are woven into them. Machines receive data whose validation and selection are made based on the views of those who made those programs as machines today are also a reflection of those who programmed them (racism was detected in the United States in the selection of employment priorities). The algorithm is a set of commands that operate on the principle of “if-then”: In this case, if a candidate for a job is African-American, they will automatically be “lowered” to a lower priority level to get the job in question). Therefore, it is very easy to imagine that this algorithm, popularly called artificial intelligence, is just a set of commands that are executed according to the client’s idea (the one who owns such AI software). Therefore, algorithmic transparency has become an essential issue for many stakeholders, including trade unions and policymakers. Both Europe and the United States are intensively considering the ethical dimension of artificial intelligence, and one of the areas where the use of artificial intelligence is assessed as potentially risky is the world of work.
This was discussed on November 25th at the fourth national conference, “The Future of Work 2021 - Good Innovations,” organized by the Centre for Public Policy Research (CENTER). Mareike Melman, assistant professor at the Department of Information and Process Management, Bentley University in the US, has devoted part of her research work to study the impact of algorithmic management on managing work on global work platforms - from those dealing with the food delivery and transporting passengers to those where work is done online, such as, say, Upwork and Guru.
Workers on food delivery and transportation platforms receive detailed real-time instructions on their smartphones on where to go and what or when to pick up, putting pressure on couriers to expedite delivery frequently and harming their traffic safety and occupational safety and health. Algorithms are also in charge of calculating workers’ performance, awarding bonuses, and identifying with those with low performance that are “punished”. This includes supervision and monitoring of work and mechanisms for evaluating workers, which has traditionally been the job of managers.
Food delivery platforms evaluate workers based on customer ratings, acceptance or rejection of delivery requests, or order cancellation rates. This sometimes results in disciplinary measures and often temporary or permanent deactivation from platforms, which means that the delivery man has lost his job.
Very often, once deactivated, a worker has no way of addressing “human” management to explain whether they really made a mistake or if there was a mistake at all.
In recent years, the EU has taken a series of steps towards greater transparency in the workplace, and now the US has raised the issue to one of its most important priorities. As for platforms, it insists on changes that cover both “input” and “output” in algorithmic decision-making. By this, he means primarily controlling the work of algorithms before they are applied in the workplace, free access to “code,” and other approaches in strengthening the transparency of the functioning of algorithms. After all, it is insisted that the last instance to decide on disciplinary action or firing workers from the platform is the man.
Mareike Melman believes it is not enough to establish good legislation in this field, but above all, to insist on the ethical dimension of the irresponsible use of algorithms. So, Uber came under heavy public scrutiny in Britain when it emerged that it had laid off several of its workers based on misleading data. “I believe that in the future, a company that maintains its reputation should certainly take care of responsible use of algorithms,” Melman said.
The GDPR, the (European) General Data Protection Regulation, has established essential boundaries for data protection rights, including access, deletion, rectification, and transferability, but has also helped ensure algorithmic transparency in the workplace. First, the GDPR requires that personal data be “processed in a lawful, fair and transparent manner”. It requires the interested party to obtain clear and meaningful information on how the algorithm makes decisions, the possibilities for error, and the consequences of such an error.
Also, the GDPR insists that the man has the last word in decision-making and that the worker must have the right to present his arguments in the process. At the same time, the GDPR has also proven very powerful in enabling workers to access data collected by the platform about them as evidence that the platform has arbitrarily suspended or denied them payment.
Melman, however, believes that both the GDPR and other control systems that are being developed are rigid, slow, and insufficient to allow workers to protect their rights in a reasonable time. This is primarily because they are only effective when the damage has already been done. There are long years of trial and proving violations with many complicated technological nuances – the process where platforms are much more successful and resourceful than unions, workers, and courts.
What makes algorithmic management important when we talk about workers is another question: proving whether the platforms are, in fact, employers. The fact that they shape and manage the work process demonstrates that suppliers to whom platforms impose the role of independent subcontractors are, in fact, workers.
To address the problems of artificial intelligence inside and outside the workplace, the EU has proposed an Artificial Intelligence Regulation, which goes much further than the previous regulation and requires an explanation before a decision has been made, whenever the algorithm is categorized as “high risk,” which is precisely the case with the labour area.
However, both Melman and many other researchers worry that companies have been given the right to conduct internal audits of these processes themselves.
Within the European Reshaping Work initiative, based in the Netherlands, of which the CENTER is a member, several working principles have been proposed that should mean improving this process:

• Workers have to be informed when an algorithm is applied, with information on what would produce a different outcome;
• Workers have to be informed of their right to have their data deleted, their right to access data, the possibility of their portability (the possibility of retrieving that data from where it has been stored and transferring it to another location), and the correction of data;
• Workers have to be notified of measures implemented to promote equality and human rights and avoid bias.

Essentially, such initiatives aim to provide workers with complete information on the processes to which they will be exposed and give their informed consent to such conditions – to challenge or reject them. This expands the field of control established through the GDPR.
However, measures that are important for controlling the application of artificial intelligence in the field of work are not only related to technologies and technological processes.
Social dialogue has one of the essential roles in regulating these issues, primarily through the participation of trade unions in the design and co-management of algorithms to simultaneously meet the needs of the company and protect the rights of workers. An “upgraded,” modernized dialogue between unions and employers could also be established through social dialogue. This dialogue and interaction would develop voluntary codes of conduct for workplace algorithms or new and innovative solutions.

In February next year the Ministry of Labour and Ministry of Culture and Information will start working intensively with trade unions of workers in media on finding adequate methods to improve and protect labour rights of journalists.
Trade unions of workers in media are supposed to establish a work group which would define key problems while employers would be obliged to found their association. This is the conclusion of the meeting recently organized at the initiative of the Trade Union of Journalists of Serbia. The meeting was atttended by the CATUS representatives.
Minister of Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue, Gordana Čomić stressed it was about time we started talking about the violation of labour rights of journalists. The fact that violation existed in the first place meant that democracy was at stake. She also added that journalists were hired without the employment contract, on temporary and occasional jobs, fixed-term contracts, which harms their own and their family’s existence.
President of the Trade Union of Journalists of Serbia, Dragana Čabarkapa, pointed out that precariousness was the most damaging in the media. It prevents public criticism of the authorities and society because the fear of losing your job is the greatest censor. The fifth of journalists are freelancers and only 27% of them are employed full time. She also explained that the privatisation destroyed media, especially at local level, because owners are driven by personal interests and the only solution lay in the amandment to the exisiting legislation. While waiting for this to happen, it is necessary to sign a branch collective agreement. This proposal was seconded by the state secretary in the Ministry of Labour, Stana Božović who thinks that many problems would be solved by signing the branch collective agreement.

On the occasion of December 2, International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, the ILO estimated there were more than 40 million people around the world in modern slavery, including approximately 25 million people in forced labour and 15.4 in forced marriages.
Going deeper into the analysis, as it is said, it means that there are 5.4 victims of modern slavery per 1,000 people, while every fourth victim is a child.
Out of 25 million enslaved people in forced labour more than 16 million are exploited in the private sector, for instance in housework, construction or agriculture; 4,8 million people are undergoing forced sexual exploitation and four million of them are in forced labour organised by state bodies.
Women and girls are disproportionally hit by forced labour, amounting to 99% of victims in the industry of commercial sex and 58% of those engaged by force in other sectors.
In the video on the ILO website famous people present short true stories of people enslaved in forced labour in order to raise the awareness about this issue and support the campaign on the elimination of modern slavery in all its forms.

What does digitalization mean for employees today? What are the challenges workers face, whose work, work price, and working conditions depend on the algorithms that channel and monitor their work and "give" them work ̶ ¬ or "exclude" them from the workplace? These issues were the focus of the final conference of the Digital Danube Network (DiDaNet) project organized by the Federation of Trade Unions of Austria (ÖGB) held on September 30 in Vienna.
The final conference, which discussed working conditions and ways to improve the position of gig workers in the platform economy, was attended by representatives of partner institutions and organizations from Slovenia (Association of Free Trade Unions of Slovenia ̶ ZSSS, and Trade Union ̶ Mladi Plus), Serbia (the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia ̶ CATUS and TUC "NEZAVISNOST"), Moldova (National Confederation of Trade Unions of Moldova ̶ CNSM) and Ukraine (Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine ̶ FPU).

Digitization of work vs. job flexibility
Digital transformation is one of the most significant events of the 21st century. And, while employers in all sectors invest in the modernization of work processes, employees feel increasing pressure. They face a lack of training offered in the new and vastly different working conditions. For this reason, the Federation of Trade Unions of Austria (ÖGB) seeks to strengthen transnational solidarity by seeking project cooperation to set a course for the necessary involvement of workers and their representatives in social dialogue with employers and the state.
Working on online platforms, part-time (gig) work through applications, trade union organization in atypical forms of work ̶ all these are terms that often go hand in hand with digital transformation and today represent an important topic in the work of trade unions. New types of work have brought new dilemmas and challenges in building partnerships for more dignified working conditions for these workers.
The economy of digital platforms has its say in a growing number of business areas. In European Union countries, as much as 11% of the workforce provides services through platforms ̶ either online or offline, that is, on-site. In Serbia, Ukraine, and Moldova, working through global digital platforms is more represented. Serbia ranks 11th in the world in terms of the number of workers on the platforms per capita, while they work on the location (food delivery and passenger transport) developed just before the pandemic outbreak.
ÖGB Vice President Korinna Schumann pointed out at the conference that digitalization has peaked in the pandemic and that working from home or remotely has imposed itself as a constant option in some sectors. In this context, the question is: How to fight for the protection and promotion of workers' rights in new conditions?
Trade unions in Europe and the countries of the region are trying to influence the development of the legal framework to avoid an exploitative business model for platform workers both online and on-site.
For those who provide such services, it is often the only source of income. At the same time, organizing work through online platforms challenges previously valid regulations and standards in the world of labor and labor rights, especially when it comes to global platforms. They treat their workers as "self-employed," thus denying them the protection of a standard employment contract.
In that way, workers are deprived of social, health, and pension insurance, some work "on the black market" while others register as "self-employed." Algorithms are increasingly in the spotlight due to potential discrimination against workers and non-transparent workforce management.
Such trends pose the question of how workers can engage in social dialogue through their workers' structures and organizations and how to shape up "digital solidarity" that mobile platform applications often prevent from developing. Also, one of the main challenges is to find ways to avoid social insecurity, which often results from weakness in the negotiation process. In addition to these, the conference also discussed ways to reach vulnerable groups, especially from the migrant population that makes up a large portion of workers on food delivery platforms. Therefore, one of the main topics of the conference was the issue of directing technological progress, which would have positive consequences for all and not only for the few (platform owners). This requires appropriate strategies ̶ the main features of which were discussed with experts from both academia and those with practical insights.
Trade unions from all countries participating in the project (Austria, Slovenia, Serbia, Moldova, and Ukraine) presented the activities and challenges faced by workers and unions related to platform work.
ÖGB presented the "Riders Collective" initiative ̶ a customized offer for young people engaged in food delivery through online platforms. It was concluded that it would be necessary to defend their interests and rights and educate all participants in this digital environment ̶ employers, clients, and workers, with the support of workers' structures.
Labor law professor Martin Gruber-Risak pointed out that case law has worked more on regulations than legislators themselves in recent years. Workers and the self-employed in the processes with platforms such as Uber in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Britain, Glovo in Spain, and others have been classified as employees.

Strong trade unions ̶ important in the future
The Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), Ludovic Voet, presented the EU Directive on working conditions on digital platforms, the adoption of which is expected by the end of 2021. Its importance can impact workers in terms of organizing, collective bargaining, defending the right to privacy, and setting the work-life balance.
In the last round, with the participation of experts, the conference discussed various dimensions and possible solutions to the digitized and increasingly individualized world of work. Participants agreed that platforms must abide by regulations and laws on fair and dignified work, while the future of work today has to be decided upon only with a strong union. The more those who join the trade union movement, the stronger and more effective the participation and defense of their rights will be.

The context on platform work in Serbia
Serbia takes 11th position in the world regarding the number of platform workers per capita and 3rd in Europe. This trend has been present in last few years but has been further intensified by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Serbia in mid-March 2020. The curfew and global lockdown increased the number of people in Serbia looking for online jobs, on digital platforms, or employers offering a possibility of remote work.
With the onset of the pandemic, the need for jobs involving the delivery of food and other goods increased, which has led to a substantial expansion of mobile applications for food delivery through which companies such as Glovo, Wolt, and Donesi operate. They have expanded their work to larger urban areas in Serbia, primarily Novi Sad, Niš, and Pančevo.
Such an increase in the volume of work on online platforms and mobile applications is not followed by an appropriate legislative framework, which brings with it certain consequences, but at the same time the necessity of establishing a social dialogue to articulate the interests of workers.
As a result, platform workers on online platforms from Serbia organized protests under the leadership of their organizations ̶ primarily the largest one, the Association of Online Workers (URI). This association was formed principally to voice the requests of platform workers, who faced the demands of the Tax Administration of Serbia to collect employment tax liabilities many Internet workers were unfamiliar with, which represents excessive tax burden to such insecure work engagement.
After months of dialogue between URI and representatives of the Government and the Ministry of Finance, consultations of URI and social partners, especially trade unions, protest camping in front of the Serbian Parliament, negotiations ended with an interim agreement on how to tax part-time income of platform freelancers.
At the same time, there were several small internal strikes on food delivery platforms when some of the workers came into contact with the unions, but there were no mass protests whatsoever.
The Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia and TUC “NEZAVISNOST" established a connection with the Association of Internet Workers (URI) and supported their actions and demands, while the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) also supported the demands of URI.
As part of the DiDaNet project, the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia and TUC "NEZAVISNOST" organized DigiDay in May 2021, which was a kind of "Open Day" for platform workers on both types of platforms.
Networking and cooperation have been established with partner organizations and experts in relevant fields through the Danube@Work and DiDaNet projects to raise awareness on improving the rights of platform workers. The project initiated the development of solidarity among workers in traditional sectors and those in flexible forms of work. The Association of Online Workers supported the struggle of union headquarters to increase the minimum wage. Several events and joint activities were held as part of the project with the exchange of views and ideas that could improve the status of platform workers, as well as ETUC coaching sessions and consultations of the EU social partners on the working conditions of digital platforms and workers who earn income through them.
New communication channels have been opened (articles on the websites of TUC "NEZAVISNOST" and CATUS and their social networks), and the dialogue with the public about new forms of work has been made more significant.

At this week’s meeting organized in the premises of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia between the CATUS Presidency, presidents of branch unions , local unions and Serbian Prime Minister, Ana Brnabić, Finance Minister, Siniša Mali and Labour Minister, Darija Kisić Tepavčević, it was concluded that the state needed to provide for consistent respect of the right to the freedom of association and decent work, as well as to include trade union positions regarding minimum wage growth and pay rise when planning the budget.
CATUS President Ljubisav Orbović pointed out that trade unions took part in the negotiations on the minimum wage, but didn’t negotiate, which was unacceptable. It’s important to negotiate with trade unions, especially in the public sector, about the wages in the upcoming period. Of course, this should be done in line with state capacities at the moment.
According to him, negotiations always start in the real sector because that’s where domestic product is created, budget filled and base for pay rise in the public sector made.
‘However, workers in this sector are undermined, low paid, harassed by employers, prevented from joining trade union or organizing any kind of meeting, despite the fact that these rights are guaranteed by the Constitution and laws. That is how dozens of people were kicked out of ‘Yura’ for wanting to establish trade union and that model is copied in many other companies’, he stressed.
The problem escalated in the Chinese tyre factory “Linglong”. The whole situation, involving the employment agencies which organized the arrival of Vietnamese workers to Serbia, presents a very shameful picture of our country.
President Orbović warned that foreign labour force was being imported because Serbian workers were looking for better living conditions; we offered a lot to the investors while salaries remained very low disabling workers from having decent life.
Presidents of branch unions pointed out specific problems. These are the following: in some companies salaries aren’t paid; state is powerless to penalize irresponsible employers; health insurance cards aren’t being certified and years of service aren’t being connected. What’s even more important is the necessity to sign branch collective agreements with the extended effect, which is currently at halt.
As Serbian PM Ana Brnabić estimated, there were still many problems in labour relations to be solved. She explained that the pay rise was encouraging, as well as the proposal to raise this year’s labour cost by 9.4%, which would make minimum wage surpass 35,000RSD (299EUR).
She also added that minimum wage increase, which was expected to be a bit over 7%, would be a lot higher than the GDP increase.
Brnabić explained that the pay rise in the public sector was 42% while in the real sector it was 52%. Now this gap is reduced. She reminded that by the budget for the following year the proposed pay rise in the public sector would be 7.4%.
During the pandemic the state provided aid in the amount of eight billion euros in order to prevent dismissals. Consequently, 60,000 new jobs were created.
‘We are making an effort to create a secure, predictable business environment so that employment would continuously grow, which would inevitably lead to market development and average wage growth’, said Brnabić.
In his concluding comment, President Orbović thanked representatives of the government for their readiness to talk and negotiate, which is the right way to solve problems and provide better living conditions for all workers.

On October 29, 2021 at the regular session of the Social-Economic Council (SEC) social partners agreed on the need to amend the Article 188 of the Labour Law and sent their request to SEC standing bodies to be reviewed. SEC accepted the initiative of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia to amend this article.
CATUS thinks that the current definition of the Article 188 doesn’t provide for adequate protection of trade union representatives and members in their trade union activities, which puts them into unfavourable position upon the termination of their employment contract by the employer.
As the consequence of this insufficiently clear provision, employers violate it by assigning trade union activists to less paid jobs or to a different organizational unit; posting them to another place to work; posting them to work for another employer or declaring redundancies.
In line with the ILO Convention 135 on the protection of company trade union representatives and Recommendation 143, the Article 188 is supposed to protect trade union presidents and members.
CATUS warned that social dialogue in Serbia would remain in crisis until true protection of trade union representatives and members had been obtained. That is why the CATUS has launched this initiative which social partners considered to be of huge importance.

After workers have come back from their two-week paid leave, the production of the model 500L in the factory ‘FIAT Chrysler Serbia’ resumed. According to the autonomous factory trade union in Kragujevac, the production resumed in two shifts and in full capacity, which means that up to 200 vehicles are made per shift.
Trade union President, Saša Đorđević said they expected to have a meeting with the management representatives, after which they would know how many working days there would be till the end of the year and when the workers would be able to take their annual winter holiday, having in mind that the annual production plan was at the lower level than in 2020.
Previously, employees in FCA usually took their holiday in the second week of December.

Participation in the Working Group for the Drafting of the Law on Flexible Forms of Employment will enable the representatives of two main trade union confederations – Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia – SSSS, Trade Union Confederation NEZAVISNOST – UGS NEZAVISNOST and Association of Internet Workers - URI to react if there are any harmful proposals, as is the case with the Law on Simplified Work Engagement on Seasonal Jobs in Certain Activities, but it cannot guarantee that it will prevent the adoption of the law even if it is obvious it is poor.
Unlike other parts of the world – where workers on mobile platforms for food delivery and passenger transport take to the streets – in Serbia, a large protest in 2021 was organized by freelancers who work on digital platforms. This might not seem strange, as there are between 70,000 and 100,000 workers working on digital platforms in Serbia, which pits our country at the first place in the world as well as Europe (per capita), while the legal employment status of many of them has not been resolved appropriately.
According to the latest available analysis (Public Policy Research Centre), about half of the digital workers in Serbia (54%) who participated in the survey have another (offline) job or are entrepreneurs and – on that basis – have access to a basic social protection plan. For the remaining 46% of digital workers who participated in the survey and who are in the grey area, access to the social protection system is much more fragmented and not clearly defined.
Anyway, the decision of the Tax Administration to collect taxes for five years retroactively took the heterogeneous community of workers to the streets in April this year. Fighting for their rights, they got in touch for the first time with two representative unions in Serbia and earned their support.
After the protest, which resulted in partial success – writing off part of the claim, freelancers represented by the URI, UGS NEZAVISNOST, and SSSS continued to cooperate, and now they are trying together to introduce solutions that will better protect the employment status of freelancers into the Law on Flexible Forms of Employment, whose draft is expected by the end of this year.
This tripartite dialogue shows what values and principles are common to SSSS, UGS NEZAVISNOST and URI, and how they see the advantages and disadvantages of resolving the employment status of freelancers through the Law on Flexible Forms of Employment.
Why and in how way do unions support workers on digital platforms in demands and negotiations with the Serbian government?
LJUBISAV ORBOVIĆ, President of SSSS: For about 80% of these workers, working on the internet is the only source of income to support their children and parents. However, their employment status is not regulated by any regulation of the Republic of Serbia. That is why the unions support that work and working conditions of these workers be regulated in a way that allows them access to all employment rights.
Their greatest problem at the moment is that they now belong mainly to the group of the self-employed and are not recognizable by laws, which is why there are problems with the collection of taxes that are not fairly determined in their case.
MIRAN POGAČAR, President of URI: It seems to us that the unions recognize that the world has been changing dramatically due to digitalization and that they need to be more involved in organizing and representing the interests of workers on digital platforms. Recognizing the growing number of people working on the internet and their disunity, the unions supported our organization and negotiations with the Serbian government because they recognized the possibility to define working conditions, tax treatment, and employment status more clearly through future legal solutions. Our support for the union’s struggle for the minimum wage is an act of solidarity because we are not directly concerned with the issue of the minimum wage, but it is clear that better living conditions and higher income mean a better life for all of us.
ZORAN STOJILJKOVIĆ, President of UGS NEZAVISNOST: Supporting workers on digital platforms, primarily through their involvement in the process of social dialogue, is, from the position of the trade unions, completely understandable. It is about the phenomenon of platforms and their impact on labour rights, the labour market, but also on the revision of existing international agreements and tax policy.
Apart from the fact that it is most often precarious per se, this type of work has the potential to affect negatively not only further liberalization of work and reduction of rights based on work (employment contract, working conditions, intensity, fixed salary, education and promotion, sick leave and social security, working hours and the right to a meal or rest breaks or annual leave, the right to organize and join a union) but also to the level of wages.
There are two key open questions before our organization that advocates for the protection of all workers’ rights, not only those with traditional employment contracts. First, are insecurity and precariousness inevitable destiny? And, where are the boundaries between the realms of „private“ and „business“ in the digital world – will contracts, salaries, and pensions as we know them disappear?
A new social charter for the digital economy and transnational representation on digital platforms have long been necessary.
What problems in the field of labour rights do unions see as key ones when it comes to workers on platforms?
LJ. ORBOVIĆ (SSSS): Freelancers usually do not sign any contracts, do not set the work tariff or negotiate about it. They do not have a secured or minimum wage and do not know how long their work engagement will last. There is no job security, so they are constantly afraid of financial insecurity. No one protects them from dismissal or mobbing; banks do not approve loans or give them cheques. For all these reasons, it is necessary to regulate their employment status by law and to enable them to be fairly taxed, to organize themselves in unions, and to be able to negotiate better working conditions and wages, which we hope will be made possible by the Law on Flexible Forms of Employment.
M. POGAČAR (URI): The work on the internet is completely undefined; there are only certain duties to the state that are defined through the payment of taxes and contributions, while the rights do not exist. We see that a key problem is the non-existence of rights from collective labour relations, such as the right to collective association and negotiation. Contrary to popular belief that workers on the Internet work exclusively for many clients, there are a large number of freelancers who are in some grey area employment, and the right to trade union association would be possible to exercise if the Labour Law applied to them.
Z. STOJILJKOVIĆ (UGS NEZAVISNOST): Quite often, workers on platforms and trade unions look at things from different perspectives. For example, undefined working hours, constant availability, and the number of working hours – working up to 80 hours a week for some workers on platforms is the way to have higher earnings when they need it, and for unions, it is a violation of hard-earned labour rights to eight-hour working hours. For many online workers, especially those who work through delivery platforms, the issue of safety and health at work is a great problem, especially because of their constant involvement in traffic, sometimes for 12 hours a day. Unfortunately, most of these workers do not even know that there is a law regulating the field of safety and health at work, nor that they should have any rights. Formally, they do not have the right to be part of a union because our Labour Law guarantees the right to join and organize into a union to employees only, not workers, although ILO Convention 87 and Convention 98, which refer to the freedom to associate and protection of the right to organize, use the word worker in a much broader sense.
Which social rights issues do unions and freelancers see as key ones when it comes to platform workers, respectively?
L J. ORBOVIĆ (SSSS): They do not have the right to pension and disability insurance, nor health insurance. They do not have the right to sick leave, maternity leave, paid vacation. This means that they remain legally unprotected and left to fend for themselves without any financial support and assistance from the employer in all the above mentioned situations.
M. POGAČAR (URI): Workers on the Internet cannot exercise any of the social rights from employment, for example, the right to limited working hours, the right to vacation, or the right to maternity leave and childcare leave, because these rights are guaranteed only to traditional employees.
Z. STOJILJKOVIĆ (UGS NEZAVISNOST): The greatest challenges concern the coverage by pension and disability insurance (PIO) and unemployment insurance. Internet workers who are registered as unemployed or inactive do not exercise these rights despite their digital work. Most workers on digital platforms from Serbia have been working for more than three years, but this length of service is no basis for insurance. Uninsured internet workers rarely seek security through investments in private health, pension, and life insurance, primarily because their real income is not as large as assumed. Those workers who already have basic social protection (through employment or based on being entrepreneurs) are more likely to have private insurance, whether pension, health or life insurance, than other internet workers registered as unemployed or in a grey area. This points to inequalities within the freelancer population itself and results in the creation of two classes – one that is socially secure on several bases and one that, due to the legal vacuum, is at greater risk of social exclusion and poverty.
What problems and in what way could the announced Law on Flexible Forms of Employment solve? Is there a fear that this law could deepen some already identified problems or contribute to the fragmentation of the corpus of work rights, as could be the case with, for example, the Law on Simplified Work Engagement on Seasonal Jobs in Certain Activities?
LJ. ORBOVIĆ (SSSS): There is a general trend of fragmentation of the existing Labour Law and narrowing of all existing employment rights, which is shown by the Draft Law on Employment due to the increased volume of work in certain activities, as the current name of this law is. This draft clearly shows the intention to regulate the employment status of such persons in an inefficient way. This is evidenced by the fact that there is no employment contract but a written notice the worker receives about basic working conditions.
The new Law on Flexible Forms of Employment could regulate the employment status of workers on digital platforms and other forms of flexible work in a better way than the current one because they are now in the so-called grey zone. However, there are also fears that it could offer solutions as in the mentioned Draft, where workers are left without basic employment rights.
The main idea of those behind this Draft Law and the rewriting of the Labour Law is to fundamentally change the employment relationship’s character fundamentally in the sense that employment becomes precarious and that the whole system is reduced to leaving the worker alone, face-to-face with the employer. The creators of this text send the message that the intention is to make it the dominant form of work engagement in Serbia. The consequence of this concept is an increase in the exploitation of employees.
M. POGAČAR (URI): It remains to be seen whether more laws will be changed or only one law will be passed. However, rights and duties must be clearly defined so that people can continue to live and work. As we have said before, duties must be in line with rights, and if the state cannot guarantee all the rights that traditional employees have, then it is clear that taxes and contributions must not be at the same or even higher level than in cases of traditional employees.
The solution to the status of workers on the internet can be carried out in two ways. First, there is the possibility of defining the rights and duties of workers on the internet by amending several laws, such as the Labour Law, the Law on Personal Income Tax, and the Law on Mandatory Social Security Insurance Contributions. This may be more complex, but it is certainly a better way to deal with this problem. Another approach would be through a separate Law on Flexible Forms of Employment, i.e., a lex specialis. This approach would be faster but would continue the negative practice of avoiding labour rights guaranteed to everyone. Of course, there is a fear that a separate law represents a secret reduction of rights based on work, but not before we have seen how the situation with the working group will develop – only then will we be able to say whether it goes into the right direction or not.
Z. STOJILJKOVIĆ (UGS NEZAVISNOST): For us at UGS NEZAVISNOST, there is an indisputable need to resolve the issue of freelancers, i.e. online workers, through the Labour Law, and not through a new law that would treat only these groups of workers. At the rallies we organized, there were fears expressed that the Law on Flexible Forms of Employment would bring only a partial solution for these workers (in the sense that they could have the possibility of exercising certain labour and social rights, e.g. to be fully registered as employees and, with a system of payment of contributions, to have their length of service accounted for) as could be the case with, say, the Law on Simplified Work Engagement on Seasonal Jobs in Certain Activities. Participation in the Working Group will allow representatives of trade union headquarters and URI to react if they notice similar intentions, but would not guarantee that it could prevent the adoption of the law, even if it is obvious that it is inadequate.

(Brief report)
STRATEGY:
Facing the changes, the union strategy consists of three complementary goals and accompanying activities, says Stojiljković:

1. Towards fair digital work – ETUC (European Trade Union Confederation) resolution on digitalization which includes access to quality education. Permanent, lifelong learning that is not limited to new tools and skills training is the only viable answer.
2. The directives on privacy, human dignity and personal data protection are also a must if we do not want to end up in Huxley’s dystopia of the “brave new world” and live in a zone of permanent surveillance and a state of superficial mind-numbing pleasure.
3. Campaigns for union organization of (partially) employed, but also self-employed, and broader definition of the union and its potential clientele.

Reducing the “grey” economy and joint activities with the Association of Internet Workers (URI) are, therefore, some of the steps in the right direction.

Around the world, young people with few job options are forced to take whatever work they can find, no matter how low the pay or insecure the work. Many sign on with platform-based jobs to get by. Others leave their country with the hope of finding decent, secure work elsewhere, looking for a chance to fairly compete on a level playing field.
The latest Solidarity Center Podcast takes a look at what’s happening in Serbia, where one in four young people are not employed and not in school, and how unions there are meeting the challenges.
“The number one issue for all countries in the region and all young people is decent employment and the potential to find a job for each person in a way that is transparent and efficient and without corruption,” says Bojana Bijelovic Bosanac, a political scientist and expert adviser in the International Department at Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia (CATUS).
Bosanac tells Solidarity Center Executive Director and podcast host Shawna Bader-Blau about a union-lead survey among young workers in the Balkan region during the pandemic in which many reported being unpaid for their platform work as programmers, customer service reps, telecenter workers and delivery drivers, with nowhere to turn for support. Making the union their home is a key goal for CATUS and unions across Serbia.
“When we talk to young people, we want them to know that they are part of the union. They are the future of the union. We are inviting them always to approach, to come, to participate and to be leaders of the union.”

https://www.solidaritycenter.org/podcast/podcast-young-workers-struggle-to-find-good-jobs/

For almost two years employees in education have been working in pandemic conditions and maintaining educational processes in the state of emergency. The number of students is unknown while the Government and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development are insensitive to trade union’s appeals that teachers are finacially and professionally humiliated.
At the session held on August 27, 2021 National Committee of the Teachers’ Trade Union of Serbia discussed the current situation and position of employees and decided to ask for negotiations with the Government of the Republic of Serbia and line ministries about their demands. The demands were sent on August 31.
The first demand is to increase the cost of labour by 15%. This relates to the increase of minimum wage of 9.4% and will be applied starting from January 1. For the past 5 years the increase of cost of labour in education has been lower than minimum wage increase, which led to a complete disruption of the co-efficient system.
The second demand relates to the amendment to the Rulebook on class formation aimed at reducing the number of students in primary and secondary schools. The reduction of the number of students would improve the quality of lessons and lead to less redundacies that seem to go up year in year out.
Our final demand is to amend rulebooks on financial criteria and standards for primary and secondary schools which would enable associates and non-instructional personnel to be financed in proportion to the number of classes, i.e. the area of the institution. This would also apply to the support personnel in educational institutions.
Presidency of the Teachers’ Trade Union decided to send its demands once again to the competent bodies and establish a deadline of 10 days for the start of negotiations. If the negotiations didn’t start within the stipulated time, Teachers’ Trade Union would go on strike.
As the invitation to negotiate didn’t follow, decision was made to organize a warning strike on October 22, 2021. We underline that social dialogue between the employer and trade union has been at the lowest possible level for the past several years.

Considering that the existing definition of the Article 188 of the Labour Law doesn’t provide trade union representatives and members with sufficient support when working on trade union issues, which practically puts them into an unfavourable position due to their employment contract being terminated by the employer, Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia sent to the Social and Economic Council the initiative to amend this Article of the Labour Law.
As the consequence of this rather unclear legal provision, there are frequent violations done by the employer: assigning less paid jobs to trade unions activists, rearranging their work in a different organizational unit, posting them to work in another location, posting them to work for a different employer, making them redundant.
In line with the ILO Convention 135 on the protection and benefits provided for trade union representatives in companies and with the Recommendation 143 on trade union representatives, the Article 188 of the Labour Law should protect shop stewards, trade union members and presidents from discrimination and employers’ misuse.
CATUS warns unless trade union representatives and members at the company level are provided with genuine protection of rights and freedom of their trade union activity, social dialogue in the Republic of Serbia shall remain in crisis, which may finally deprive the state of its social partners.

According to the instructions given by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of Serbia, students should avoid direct contact in their school activities and follow lessons in real time over a selected learning system (platform) or some other electronic communication channels and programs.
However, Teachers’ Trade Union of Serbia needs to draw public’s attention to the fact that there are principals who haven’t been able to provide students with the possibility to follow lessons in real time. Due to this, they order teachers to do the same job online once again for the students who are in isolation. What’s more, the order is issued without any justification and duration of overtime work and respective pay rise, which is contrary to the existing regulations.
This way, teachers who are assigned to do this have to do the same job twice in a day in the following manner: realize classes of 45 minutes with students who go to school and afterwards do the same job online with students who are not able to be present in school.
This problem needs to be solved, but not to teachers’ detriment. Consequently, we propose that these situations are resolved by organising online lessons for students in isolation exclusively through the platform My School and RTS Planeta platform and if this happens to be impossible to do, employees who are obliged to work overtime from their homes need to be paid additionally.
If these conditions are not met, we demand that lessons at school last 30 minutes because it is extremely exhausting for teachers to do double work. Also, if teachers and students stay longer in school, it is more probable they would get infected.

Public discussion on Draft Law on Seasonal Work finished without attracting much attention from the media. Trade unions and some experts believe that it deprives workers of their rights, legal protection and allows the employment of foreigners without a contract. The Ministry of Labour and Serbian Employers’ Association (SEA) say this is not true and the new law will enable faster and easier employment, reduction of informal economy and budget increase.
In many professions Serbia lacks seasonal work force. Due to this the legislator has expanded the scope of the law to work in construction, catering industry, tourism, cleaning services in buildings, help around the house, baby-sitting and looking after the elderly. This Law allows workers to do the job 15 days per month without a written contract. However, the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia considers this to be unconstitutional and illegal and warns that in such a way the state will reduce its income.
Some legal experts think that the new law is not necessary because increased demand for seasonal workers can be well regulated by the existing law. They underline that each article in the new law goes against the workers and in favour of the huge capital. "They don’t have the right to limited working hours and overtime work, paid leave and court protection. There are no vacation bonuses and severance pays ", says Mario Reljanović, Ph.D. from the Institute for Comparative Law.
Employers claim that the law refers only to temporary engagement, not employment, as well as it contains numerous advantages. First of all, workers do not lose their right to the existing income financed by the state, such as: unemployment fee, pension, child allowance. It means the payment of these fees will continue regardless of them being hired on these grounds and there is the ban on work for another employer, which the previous law did not contain. SEA points that legal protection is also envisaged before the Agency for Peaceful Setllement of Labour Disputes, which previously was not the case.
Nevertheless, trade unions believe it will be quite difficult for the inspectors to control whether workers really work 15 days or full month because there’s not enough of them – an insector checks several thousand companies. They also remark that the law allows occasional employment of foreigners who do not need a visa to enter Serbia, which creates disloyal competition for domestic workers.
The Ministry replied that foreigners usually worked in the black market witout paying any taxes and contributions and added that the law would regulate foreigners’position, which also meant it would become more expensive.

Once again the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia demands from the authorities to urgently start the ratification process for the ILO Convention 190 on the elimination of violence and harassment in the world of work. Initiative is widely supported by institutions and individuals in Serbia, which is a confirmation that the ratification of the Convention 190 and its Recommendation 206 is an important link in the improvement of Serbian labour and social legislation and a crucial step in the harmonization of regulations and standards with the EU legislation.
Since June 2021 when the Convention 190 has been enforced in many European countries, with the full support of local ILO offices, preparations for its ratification and full application started. This procedure has been recently finished by Greece. Numerous cases of labour rights violation in both public and private factories and entreprises, formal and informal economy, urban and rural areas make us continue advocating for the ratification and implementation of the Convention in the laws of the Republic of Serbia. We also urge that measures and mechanisms for the prevention of violence and harassment be closely defined. Our demand was also supported by the Euriopean Trade Union Confederation, International Trade Union Confederation and regional ILO office in Budapest, who will be duly informed about the progress in this process.

STOP PANDEMIC
Project promotion officially started on April 14 in the CATUS Presidency. The project was realized thanks to the PanEuropean Regional Council (PERC) office in Sarajevo and Swedish trade union support program ‘Union to Union’. The fist activity was related to the International and National OHS Day on April 28, i.e. campaign organized around the cities in Serbia and aimed at raising the awareness of the importance of occupational health and safety. Such a work influenced positively the citizens because among the interviewees there were non-unionised people who set aside their time to learn more about trade union work and this topic.
The second activity was organized in June and its focus was on COVID-19 as a professional disease. Unfortunately, the Government of the Republic of Serbia did not accept this activity, but it certainly challenged social partners’ positions opposing this proposal. Having in mind that COVID is still present around the world, we will continue with the initiative to make COVID-19 a professional disease.
The third acitivity dealt with the health and safety committees and their work during the pandemic. This activity was organised on September 6-8 in Vrnjačka Banja. Due to the pandemic, we reduced the number of participants and increased the number of days at the seminar. On the occasion, participants had the opportunity to hear what legal experts in OHS had to say on the subject. Also, participants coming from different professions learned about new principles of managing OHS system through the examples of good practice from the companies: NIS refinery Pančevo, Fiat automobiles Kragujevac, Knjaz Miloš Aranđelovac and Marbo. Statistical data on the number of fatalities and injuries at work in Serbia in 2020 and other important information for the functioning of OHS system were presented, as well.

“Trade Unions through Challenges of the Past and Future” is the title of the book which was promoted last week in Belgrade. The authors of this book are Jelena Ranković, a journalist and Jugoslav Ristić, President of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of the City of Kragujevac.
The idea to publish this book originated from Zastava Arms, the oldest metal complex factory on the Balkans and its publication was financially supported by the Olof Palme International Center. The book is a metaphorical story about a society whose development has been marked by frequent crises. There is also interesting note on the spirit of the time, as well as trade union role throughout past decades. The book was written in the form of authentic testimonies of experienced trade unionists, people who talked about their enormous efforts to maintain at least partially the status that workers used to have in the previous social system.

At the session of the Social-Economic Council (SEC) the representatives of Serbian Government, trade unions and employers didn’t reach a consensus on the minimum wage increase for 2022. Instead, all parties stuck to their position.
At the session marking the end of negotiations, Government representatives, headed by the Prime Minister Ana Brnabić and Finance Minister Siniša Mali, repeated it was impossible to increase the minimum wage to 39,000 RSD, as it was demanded by the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia (CATUS) and TUC NEZAVISNOST. This amount would make the minimum wage equal to the value of minimum consumer basket, according to the agreement made at the SEC session three years ago.
Since social partners’ positions weren’t harmonized, final decision on the minimum wage is to be made by the Serbian Government till September 15.
After the session Prime Minister Ana Brnabić said that in 2022 minimum wage would be 35,012RSD, which represents the increase of 9.4%. At the press conference she explained that in 2022 the increase would cover 89% of the minimum consumer basket. As she understood trade unions’ dissatisfaction with the decision, she announced that trade unions’ demands would probably be met at the end of 2023 with the decision coming into force on January 1, 2024.
CATUS and TUC NEZAVISNOST representatives said they weren’t satisfied because the increase should cover 100% of the minimum consumer basket.

It was necessary for freelancers to take to the streets in 2020 in order to completely expose the anachronism of the Law on Personal Income Tax and the inequalities it produces. Today, it is quite certain that there is enough knowledge and enough interlocutors - from freelancers themselves to research institutions, tax experts and unions ready to enter into dialogue, not only on the disputed law, but also on the issue of regulating non-standard forms of work as a whole. However, the Government of Serbia, which announced that the Law on Flexible Work will enter into force in 2022, is still not announced.
Professor Martin Risak, one of the biggest authorities in the field of regulating the position of workers on digital platforms, recently joked about that topic. He added that many European governments - unwilling to tackle the regulation of new, non-standard forms of work that have emerged with the spread of the Internet and the globalization of the labor market - have first claimed that there appear to be more researchers writing about platform work rather than the platform workers themselves. Now, when many of them welcomed this phenomenon unprepared - they show a huge appetite for data, although, truth be told, not for a quick search for a solution.
The Serbian case is so different that it is clear from the very beginning that there are many more freelancers in Serbia than researchers. For years, there have been so many of them to keep Serbia in the top ten countries globally, and in Europe in terms of the number of workers on online platforms per capita - as evidenced by continuous world and domestic research.
There is more and more data on freelancers - in July 2021, another survey conducted by the Association of Internet Workers (URI) was added to previous research, but it is unclear whether the Serbian government reads and thinks about them.
This new research, as well as the previous one, indicates that this institutionally vague and tax-unequal position of freelancers is harmful both for the workers and their families, and for Serbia as a country, which is facing more and more challenges in retaining quality labor.
In the text below, we will summarize the results of the URI survey and compare them with previous research.
The research entitled "Who are the workers on the Internet, what do they do and what do they need?", Conducted by URI in the period from June 25 to July 10, is the most massive survey of workers on online platforms in Serbia so far. At the time of publishing the results, it included 798 people, according to 480 respondents in the NALED survey and 228 respondents in the first survey of this phenomenon in Serbia conducted in 2018 by the Center for Public Policy Research, still the only research organization that continuously investigates this phenomenon.
All these surveys were aimed at researching the demographic characteristics and socio-economic status of workers on the Internet, types and forms of their employment and income, needs and expectations regarding the future legal framework and tax approach in taxing this form of work. The Center's research also covered other issues from the dimension of decent work, including trade union organization and action.
All surveys had a suitable sample, i.e. they relied on the answers of the respondents who wanted to answer the questionnaire shared on social networks or within the informal communities of freelancers.
Research to date has generally indicated that men are much more likely to opt for freelance than women. In contrast, the URI survey talks about gender balance. In the appropriate URI sample, 49.2% were women and 50.8% were men. This is due to the fact that in the URI sample there are more respondents from language platforms dominated by women, while the previous research mainly included workers working on global general platforms dominated by men.
The surveys used different approaches in classifying the average age of workers on online platforms. Thus, the Center's survey shows that the average freelancer is between 25 and 29 years old, the NALED research suggests that the average freelancer is a man between 20 and 40 years old, while the URI research states that half of freelancers are in the 26 to 35 age group.
All research shows that freelancers, regardless of gender, are usually highly educated individuals and that most have a bachelor's degree or above (80%), as well as that the number of freelancers with secondary education is also significant and, depending on surveys, ranges between one-fifth and one-third of workers.
All surveys, as well as research with a different methodological approach, show that the number of freelancers is growing, for whom working on platforms is the main source of income "from which they live, pay bills and current obligations and support their families, usually parents and then children." In the URI survey, 77.7% of respondents said that this type of activity is their only source of income. In the NALED survey, this percentage is slightly higher (80%), while the first survey of the Center showed that, especially among women, in 2018 there was a significant number of respondents for whom this was an additional job with some other income from work.
From the first research until today, no change in the motivation to engage in freelancing has been noticed. Three answers dominate: the impossibility of finding a job in domestic companies, flexibility in work, as well as the possibility of higher earnings than in standard jobs in Serbia.
Freelancers mostly work for foreign employers who are not registered in Serbia and very often for only one dominant client. URI research confirms the already observed characteristics of this work, when it comes to the existence and type of contract that freelancers enter into with employers. In the URI survey, 94% of freelancers stated that they do not enter into any contract or that the contract has no significance in the legal system of Serbia, ie that it does not provide any guarantees that the employer will abide by what is concluded in the contract. In earlier surveys, that percentage was lower because they focused on a sample of respondents, mostly those coming from general platforms.
Consequently, all the above surveys show that the vast majority of freelancers do not exercise a large number of employment rights, primarily the right to pension and disability insurance.
At first glance, freelancers earn relatively well - in a URI survey, just over 2/3 said they earn up to €1,000, and the average freelancer’s salary is around €700. When expenses are deducted, the net average salary of a freelancer drops to around 560 euros. Slightly less than half of the respondents earn that income unevenly, while a quarter did not stabilize their income at all.
This dynamics of income generation is closely related to the regulation of one's own position in the conditions of the already mentioned anachronistic solutions. In the URI survey, 83% of freelancers answered that they did not regulate their activity at all, ie they work exclusively as natural persons, while 15% were registered as entrepreneurs.
All research - even the most recent one - points to the heterogeneous nature of platform engagement and the need to propose more solutions that will accommodate these differences. Freelancers themselves stated in the URI survey (97%) that it is necessary to introduce a new legal-tax category that would refer exclusively to workers on the Internet.
The experience of European countries shows that legislators have chosen very different solutions, from partially accommodating existing regulations to (in rare cases) having elaborate legal solutions that are adapted to both freelancers on digital platforms and those working through mobile applications for food delivery and passenger transport.
Several proposals have appeared in the domestic professional public that respect the heterogeneous structure of freelancers and offer proposals - both for changes in the law on personal income tax and for a complete solution to the employment status of freelancers. Some of these solutions are in the following texts:

• Mario Reljanović: Budućnost frilensera
• Centar za istraživanje javnih politika: Predvodnici promena na tržištu rada: prototipovi dostojanstvenog rada za Srbiju u digitalnom dobu
• Martin Risak: Platform work

Lacking clear guidelines from the International Labor Organization and the European Commission, courts and national legislators in Europe are doing their best to answer the question of whether gig workers working through digital platforms, either on-site or remotely, are employees or self-employed. However, different business models and insufficient understanding of the nature of work across platforms often lead to conflicting views of decision-makers. This can further lead to diminishing gig workers’ labor rights, warned domestic and international labor law experts at the June roundtable, organized online by the Public Policy Research Center.
Anticipating a working group for the drafting of the Law on Flexible Forms of Work, announced by the Government of the Republic of Serbia – which many have already challenged as an idea explaining that it leads to dilution of labor rights and derogations from the Labor Law – opinions and views at the round table represent a resource of knowledge for making far-reaching decisions in qualifying this form of work.
Carlo de Marchis Gomez, a lawyer of the General Italian Confederation of Labor (CGIL), part of a team of lawyers who won one of the most important European cases in the field of non-standard forms of work (in Turin), pointed out three important dilemmas faced by the courts: The first is a new organizational model (platform), which, with the help of an algorithm, enables real-time availability of the current workforce, which is a new model of work. “In labor disputes before our courts, accustomed to standard company employment and normal working hours, this new form of work came as a kind of shock,” said de Marquis.
This new model of work can be seen as traditional work with the employer or as a type of independent work as an entrepreneur. In an attempt to answer this question, the courts in Italy have followed the example of other European courts that have attempted to qualify this employment relationship.
Given that the Italian legislation has introduced some new legal provisions that define types, subtypes, categories, subcategories, and extended or partial forms of this work more closely, the problem for judges arose at a time when it was necessary to specify the form of work.
Why? That is because, in labor disputes that have been before the courts, the principle of “freedom” of workers has been emphasized, who allegedly have the discretionary right to accept or reject engagement at any time.
The first rulings of the Italian courts did not benefit workers and, in their decisions, they did not acknowledge the existence of any form of work with the employer, even partial, until the Court of Appeal in Turin and then the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation and other courts, explained their position that the relationship between the platform for ordering and the supplier of food is the relationship between the employer and the worker, taking into consideration firstly the way of doing business, i.e., the subordination of the supplier in regard to the platform. The courts demystified the issue of the alleged freedom of a deliverer to decide to accept or reject any order and also that owning a bicycle as an asset makes them entrepreneurs who do the work independently.
Legislators tried to deal with this work less often and, even then, often, wrongly. In Italy, the legislator, through poorly coordinated interventions, created a risk of creating a zone of weakened protection by introducing special provisions regarding digital workers, which created the risk that workers will be legally visibly weakened in the future, according to the principle “I grant you some, but not all the rights,” de Marchis thinks.
Bojan Urdarević, a professor of labor law at the Faculty of Law in Kragujevac, believes that such a wrong approach to the problem is a consequence of the lack of a general approach that we expect from the European Commission and the International Labor Organization. “This universal approach would mean recognizing all workers as employees, and then specifying in one clause or article in labor law that platform workers are considered employees – unless the platform as an employer proves otherwise, as already proposed by The German Metal Workers’ Union (IG Metall).”
However, he says, care must be taken that not all platforms are the same. According to him, for example, LinkedIn – like some other platforms – functions as a special type of private employment agency, which charges a commission for its work, which is, for example, completely contrary to ILO Convention 181. However, some of them are just instruments, means of work – not employers, and fall under several other regulations concerning copyright, personal data protection, occupational health and safety, and tax regulation issues.
The second very important issue related to the platforms is the algorithms, the essence of which we do not know well, while the third issue is the trade union organization and collective bargaining of these workers. The earlier doctrine of labor legislation was such that self-employed persons do not have employee rights, and therefore no right to collective bargaining. Today, however, the “winds of labor law” are changing so that more and more people are moving towards recognizing the right to collective bargaining.
The need to redefine obsolete labor legislation, which knows only bilateral labor relations based on the employer-employee relationship, existed even before the rise of digital internet platforms. New forms of work often involve tripartite relations, such as agency work or work on platforms.
However, the labor legislation is changing very slowly because those who enjoy the rights from the Labor Law do not want those rights to be reviewed because they are afraid that they will lose those benefits and rights that have already been won. “It is one of the motives for passing special laws on seasonal work, platform work,” and then the labor legislation is weakened, and the labor law becomes a relic – just an artifact that will serve no purpose because all areas of work will be regulated by special regulations having the edge over the general law,” believes Urdarević.
Martin Risak, a professor of labor law at the University of Vienna, believes that legislators are cautious because platform work is just a magnifying glass that shows how technologies will affect work in general. “It is a kind of test, and that is why it has gained such an important place in political debates.” Another reason for legislators’ hesitation is the fact that platforms fulfill a useful function in society, especially when it comes to meeting consumer needs. Even unions themselves refrain from taking the side of these workers because their members also enjoy the benefits of this cheap and efficient service. What further complicates the situation is the fact that workers hired through these platforms are often migrants, poorly educated, and therefore reluctant to initiate litigation.
The restraint of legislators has led us to judges that increasingly enter into the work of legislators who engage in the interpretation of the terms employer and worker that would correspond to the 21st century, which should not be the case. “The only real answer should be supranational legislation, which would then be applied at the state level,” Risak said. We will know more about that at the end of this year when the European Commission will complete the work on drafting the Directive on platform work, which is currently in the process of consultation.
The first attempt to establish uniform rules was made in mid-2019 when two acts were adopted at the EU level: 1. The new Directive 2019/1152 on Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions, and 2. Regulation 2019/1150 on promoting fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services. Although these regulations are more up-to-date, they do not bring fundamental novelties when it comes to platform workers. According to Darko Božičić, a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Law in Novi Sad, one of the good solutions is Article 10 of the Directive, which refers to the minimum predictability of work because this article stipulates that any worker who works full or mostly unpredictable working hours – which is one of the main features of platform work – may refuse to work if the employer did not inform them on time about the number of working hours and the period within the working day in which the planned work should be performed. “So, we can talk about a small dose of freedom of choice, that is, the real flexibility of work.”
When it comes to the functioning of algorithms, Božičić points out that automation and artificial intelligence have changed the nature of the employer. “The employer is now the one who is automated and under the guidance of information technologies, and that is why I think that the new act of the European Commission, which should regulate the position of platform workers comprehensively, must go hand in hand with the proposal for a regulation on harmonization of rules related to artificial intelligence in the European Union, which in a certain way regulates the application of artificial intelligence in the process of functioning of algorithms. It could be an initial first step in protecting digital workers further and uncovering the “black box” of algorithmic action on which the platform is based.”
Senad Jašarević, a professor of labor law at the Faculty of Law in Novi Sad, pointed out the example of the Croatian legislator who says that “if the employer concludes a contract with the employee for the performance of work which, given the nature and type of work and the employer’s authority, has the characteristics of the job for which the employment has been established, it is considered that they have concluded an employment contract with the employee–- unless the employer proves otherwise.” While this is a commendable move, a new Directive and an international agreement are needed, similar to the one recently reached by the G7 countries regarding corporate taxation. “It is obvious that taxes are much more important to them than the position of workers, but it seems that this will soon become part of the agenda,” Jašarević believes.
Sylvia Rainone, a researcher at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), pointed out the connection between platform work and non-standard forms of work. For instance, platform work is just a new version of well-known wage work.
The way each regulator – whether national or European – addresses the platform is a roadmap for understanding how that regulator envisions work and the role of work in society. Achieving ambitious employment rates and productivity and growth became among the EU’s top goals during the 1990s and early 2000s due to pressure to reach global productivity benchmarks. Working on platforms as a non-standard form of work has revealed the fact that European and national legislators are now a bit confused because they are facing lawsuits and the question of what to do, whether to “let it go” because it supposedly provides a higher employment rate… or still try with providing greater protection to these workers,” Rainone said. It is this strong ambiguity, and it is also the reason why the judiciary finds opportunities to define the main challenges and provide solutions that these legislators could use.
According to Rainone, through its research, ETUI demystified the assessment that working on platforms is a solution for a more inclusive labor market with high performance. Although a larger number of people enter the labor market with the help of platforms, they do so with significantly reduced labor standards and thus contribute to the lowering of general labor standards in traditional labor relations. “Therefore, instead of trying to see the chances of finding work in the unregulated labor market offered by the platforms, it would be much more useful to focus on the risks that this trend brings, e. g. high insecurity of workers at the cost of negligible employment growth,” Rainone said. She also added that it is important to consider the risks of lower tax revenues on such wages that undermine existing welfare state standards, encouraging unfair competition between standard employers and platforms, which have a significantly lower tax burden.
In the previous consultations on the new EU directive on platform work, the option of the third (intermediate) category of workers on platforms with reduced labor rights has appeared. There is a risk of creating a “legislative Trojan horse,” through which the gray zone will expand, where employers will progressively adjust the rights that workers should exercise. “This is especially risky at the moment when the platforms have significantly strengthened during Covid-19. “We are not just talking about working on a location via mobile app platforms, but the large increase in technology-aided work, which is a fast-expanding gray area,” Rainone warned.
In her opinion, the only correct solution is the option of expanding the scope of labor legislation we have and the labor law to all those who work on platforms. This will require a very well-argued discussion and understanding among regulators and judges, as lawyer Carlo de Marchis Gomez explained – to clarify that the algorithm is another form of governing authority.
Finally, the participants concluded that it is very important to organize such gatherings, which should include representatives of the courts, to understand the mechanism of work of the platform better.
“Abstract debates about working for an employer or working independently will not mean a lot if you do not look at and understand exactly how platforms work, how work is organized through them, and what their language is. Meetings like these, where experiences are exchanged, and peculiarities of this type of work are observed are very useful, and we must hope that this will lead to a better understanding of this type of work,” concluded de Marchis.

At the workshop ‘Occupational Health and Safety’ which was held in the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of the City of Niš, it was stressed that for the past seven months 26 fatal injuries had been recorded. The workshop was organized by the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia under the auspices of the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center.
The fact is that in the fight for profit the world of capital undermines healthy living and working environment while this problem keeps getting more and more complicated. Zoran Mihajlović, CATUS Secretary pointed out that in Serbia the situation regarding workers’ protection was not at all bright.
„We do have a good law, but the problem is non-implementation, insufficient number of labour inspectors, their integration, as well as fines. Employers find it more profitable to pay fines than to respect regulations“, says Mihajlović.
He added that the biggest number of injuries and fatalities happened in construction.
“In the first half of the year there were more fatalities and serious injuries than last year. Of course, corona took its toll and last year many people worked on the ‘black market’. This led to even more injuries. We need to raise our voice and say this is not acceptable. Only a healthy worker can bring more profit “, says Mihajlović.
Olivera Bobić, President of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of the City of Niš said the fact was that employers saw the investment in occupational health and safety as an unnecessary expense. Even workers themselves didn’t realize the importance of this issue because they fought for bare existence.
„The City of Niš shouldn't be envied when talking about this problem that COVID-19 pandemic made a lot more visible . At the beginning people were aware that protective measures weren't taken and they were forced to take action themselves in order to point out the problem“, says Olivera Bobić. She also sees that the problem lies in the non-implementation of the law.
„Fines for disrespecting measures exist and at a certain point throughout the inspection they are delivered, charges are pressed and they usually either get outdated or end up with fines below legal minimum, which isn’t effective at all. This won’t surely scare off the employers. When we begin taking prescribed punitive measures, although this isn’t aimed at putting business at risk, workers will be more protected “, says Bobić.
Professor Jovica Jovanović, Ph.D. from the Faculty of Medicine, Assistant to the Director of the Institute of Occupational Safety, pointed out that there was an increasing number of employers’ complaints to sick leaves. Regarding professional diseases, vibration disease, then locomotor system diseases, respiratory diseases, bronchial asthma are at the top position. In case of disability pension, it is usually required by those suffering from malign and cardiovascular diseases.

Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia (CATUS) and TUC NEZAVISNOST don’t give up their demand on minimum wage increase for 2022 and they estimate that the Government of Serbia, i.e. President Aleksandar Vučić, will decide about this, like it happened last year.
As CATUS Council Secretary Zoran Mihajlović explained, there are three types of minimum wage increase.
‘The first one is to equalize minimum wage, which currently amounts to 32,000RSD (272EUR), to the value of minimum consumer’s basket up to 39,000RSD (331EUR). The second option is the one suggested by President Vučić – to set the amount of 35,000RSD (297EUR) and this will probably happen’, explains Mihajlović.
As it has been announced, CATUS will propose the third option: to increase the minimum wage so that it could come closer to the average wage of around 43,00RSD (365EUR). Negotiations on the minimum wage are supposed to begin in the mid-August.
Mihajlović added that it would be most realistic if the minimum wage was brought to the level of minimum consumer’s basket of 39,000RSD. In that case other wages and pensions would need to be increased so that ‘compression’ could be avoided. He also pointed that employers’ proposal was unacceptable because if the basic amount, to which contributions weren’t paid, was increased, health insurance fund would get empty.
According to the Director of Employers’ Association of Serbia, Srđan Drobnjaković, there are two options. The first one is to increase the minimum wage by 10%, meaning to 35,000RSD and make it equal to the untaxed amount and the second one is to raise the untaxed base of today’s 18,300RSD (155EUR) to 26,000RSD (221EUR).
He pointed out that employers knew the budget had to get filled, so they agreed with the proposal to raise the nominal income tax rate from 10% to 15% and decrease the overall taxes and contributions by around 1.5%. Finally he estimated it was about time to change the tax system and transfer from the proportional to progressive taxation.

Due to decades-long destruction of the sector and state’s unfavourable attitude towards employees in cultural institutions, employees were brought to a difficult financial and social position, said the President of the Trade Union of Culture, Dragana Đorđević.
Despite the fact that even 62% of employees have a university degree, average salary in culture amounts to 48, 199RSD, which tells a lot about the state of culture, as well as the state’s attitude towards this group of employees whose salaries are the lowest in the public sector, explained Đorđević.
‘Till 2014 our salaries had been equal to the ones paid to people with elementary and secondary school education. Now, they are 6% lower than the salaries of those colleagues. When in 2014 there was a cut, we were all equally covered by the Decree on Salary Reduction. The following year salaries in the public sector were increased, but only employees in cultural institutions were excluded and we still don’t know the reason why’, she was precise.
At the meeting with colleagues from the public sector and representatives of the Ministry of Finance, we pointed out to this problem and we expect an urgent solution.
Also, we called the attention to the problem of inadequate work environment, as well as increasing self-will and arrogance of directors, which causes employees to experience additional stress and fear of losing their job, concluded Dragana Đorđević.

At the joint meeting held on July 6 representative trade unions of employees in public services, scientific-research branch, public administration and justice of the Republic of Serbia pointed out to employees’ bad financial situation and demanded that state bodies should apply urgent measures to alleviate difficulties.
Trade unions demand the amendment to the Decree on co-efficients for the calculation and payment of salaries of public sector employees, pay rise by a percentage that is higher than the percentage planned for minimum wage rise and setting up the amount for hot meal and vacation bonus.
They also demand special decree on co-efficients for the calculation and payment of salaries of the officials and employees in state bodies, bodies of autonomous provinces and units of local self-governments, as well as the enforcement of co-efficients for employees in scientific-research institutions.
Demands were sent to the Finance Minister, who is expected to explain positions of the Ministry and Serbian Government on the topic.

Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia, TUC NEZAVISNOST and Center for the Politics of Emancipation invite citizens, social movements and NGOs to support trade union demands for the minimum wage increase to the level of minimum consumer basket. Mid-August representatives of Employers’ Association, Serbian Government and trade unions will start negotiations on the minimum wage in the Social-Economic Council and the amount of next year’s minimum wage will be determined till September 15 at the latest.
Even though Labour Law stipulates that minimum wage needs be determined according to ‘existential and social needs of workers and their families expressed through the value of minimum consumer basket’, in reality minimum consumer basket reflects the consumption of 30% of the poorest groups in the society.
Taken from today’s perspective, increasing minimum wage to the level of the actual minimum consumer basket would be the first crucial step in improving workers’ living standard. That is why we demand minimum wage in 2022 to be increased by 20% and to be successively increased every year till it has reached the level enabling workers to live decently.
Minimum wage is determined according to the minimum labour cost, which is the minimum amount that an employer needs to pay per a working hour. Labour Law dictates that minimum wage shall be paid only in extraordinary circumstances not longer than 6 months. Nevertheless, minimum wage is the reality for 350,000 people. At the moment it is below the poverty line for a three-member family. It is the most drastic indicator of the degradation of living standard.
Why is minimum wage important for all of us? Raising minimum wage affects other wages, reduces inequality in the society and improves living standard of the population. Higher wages relate to bigger consumption, which generates economic activity impacting more successful business of the SMEs. Having in mind that a considerable part of our economy is in the hands of foreign companies, pay rise also means less profit drain from the country.

All workers of the service company Sloboda from Čačak came back to work. From now on this factory continues its complete production which was interrupted because of a huge explosion that happened on the shop floor, says the Autonomous Trade Union. Around 410 workers of Sloboda who are employed in the pyrotechnics department start working today while others started working last Thursday.
Company Sloboda employs 2,000 people.
For the past couple of days specialized demining units from the Military Maintenance Center from Kragujevac have been working on destroying unexploded grenades in the vicinity of the factory.
In June in the company Sloboda two hazardous events took place. The first one on June 4 when the warehouse of ready-made goods exploded and the second one 15 days later when the same happened to the warehouse of gunpowder.
In those two explosions huge material damage was done and upon the second explosion three workers were injured, residential area around the factory was affected and about 150 people living in the area were evacuated.
The causes of the explosion are still unknown and the First-Instance Prosecutor’s Office confirms that the investigation is underway.

First instance court in Ruma passed the judgement to annul the termination of employment contract of Dragana Božić, shop steward of trade union organization in the factory „HealthCare Europe“ and orders the employer to reinstate her at her work post.
This court thinks that Dragana’s dismissal, which forces her to move to an inappropriate work post and is exclusively caused by her trade union activities, is illegal and the employer is obliged to allow her to go back to work. This is another victory of the CATUS, whose legal department had represented Božić for almost two years, as well as the victory of the Autonomous Trade Union of Workers in Textile, Leather and Footwear Industry of Serbia, CATUS member, to which Dragana is affiliated.
This judgement proves truthfullness of our warnings that trade union representatives are more and more at risk of employer’s revenge because of their trade union work. As soon as workers’ representatives start protesting against injustice or violation of law and asking for better working conditions, higher salaries, respect of OHS measures, they are immediately eliminated by the employer through a dismissal, which is in most cases illegal. This also shows that if we want trade union movement to survive, it is of utmost importance to obtain better legal protection for trade union representatives than the one provided by the Labour Law.

Acting on the order of the Labour Inspection, management of the factory Aptiv from Leskovac made a decision to reintroduce the 8-hour shift, instead of the 12-hour one. In the talks with the Autonomous Metal Workers Union of Serbia (AMUS), they said they made a mistake.
AMUS President, Zoran Marković told the media that 8-hour working time would be introduced on July 5 and additional bonuses were provided.
As Markovic explained, the employer violated the Labour Law and that’s why misdemeanour measure was in place. The problem in Aptiv emerged because workers had been absent for a long time and those who worked were under an enormous pressure because they had to endure 12-hour shift.
President of the trade union organisation in Aptiv, Marko Todorović said that at the moment around 900 out of 4000 workers were on a sick leave and Marković added that even workers from Romania, Turkey and Poland were invited to come to Leskovac. Trade unionsts were told that Aptiv received a late order and they were forced to find a way to respect the deadline. More than 10 buses are transporting 4,000 workers to work in Aptiv.
Asked by JUGMedia, who a ‘softer’ negotiator was - representatives of Aptiv or Yura, Marković said that the management of Aptiv was conscious of the consequences of violating law and Yura did not respect the laws of the Republic of Serbia.

Talks between trade union and Zijin company about the new collective agreement will continue so that it could be signed soon – this is the epilogue of the meeting held between the Minister of Mining and Energy, Zorana Mihajlović and trade union representative in Zijin company.
Trade union representatives say they are supported by the government and the guarantee is their presence at the meeting with company representatives.
‘We do not ask for the salary increase, but we ask for it to stay at this level, and the employer is trying to explain it to the citizens that they are good while the trade union is bad’, says Zoran Marković, President of the Autonomous Metal Workers’ Trade Union. He adds that workers need to know where there is trade union, there is a collective agreement.
„Zijin is trying to influence trade union work and eliminate trade union rights. They post notifications on the board saying that workers don’t need trade union. International trade union organizations and the EU need to be informed that the employer is interfering in trade union work and does not respect ILO Conventions“, concluded Marković.

Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia calls upon all employers and employees to apply preventive occupational health and safety measures at high temperatures so that the risk to employees’ health would be reduced. When the air temperature goes over 36°C, employees who are working in the open, such as workers in construction and agriculture, are actually working in disadvantageous working conditions, which can affect their health in a negative way.
The symptoms of harmful effect of high temperatures to employees’ health are numerous, for instance: dehydratation, faster fatigue, heat cramps, exhaustion, dizziness, heat stroke, which can lead to the decrease of work capacity, more mistakes at work, but also injuries. CATUS reminds that in 2007 the Government of Serbia passed a recommendation which says that at high temperatures employers are to organize work in the open in a way to avoid difficult physical work and direct exposure to sun.
That is why CATUS appeals to all employers, coordinators and OHS representatives, OHS Committees, as well as employees to strictly respect those recommendations.
These are some of guidelines for organizing work: avoid work during the hottest part of the day (11-16 o’clock), redistribution of work tasks (difficult tasks should be done in a colder part of the day), work in shifts, employment of additional staff, more frequent breaks, sufficient quantities of water and organization of first aid training. Furthermore, employees should be able to take off their protective means during the break, have enough space to get away from the sun and rest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l85PLawP8xI

Aware of the increasingly intense decline of workers’ and social rights brought on by the flexibilization of work, the United Branch Trade Unions “Independence” (UGS NEZAVISNOST) and the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia (SSSS), in cooperation with the Serbian Association of Employers, organized a panel discussion on May 19, 2021, called DigiDay – Open Day, gathering representatives of relevant organizations and experts, but also workers engaged on platforms.
The talks on the position and status of workers engaged on platforms and the possibility to exercise labour rights, including the right to organize and represent their collective interests, as well as the legislative framework governing the field of work and the possibility for this precarious work to find its place in adequate legislation and become more dignified applying that regulation were initiated by the following panellists:

• Duško Vuković, Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia (SSSS),
• Zoran Stojiljković, United Branch Trade Unions “Independence” (UGS NEZAVISNOST),
• Ljiljana Pavlović, Serbian Association of Employers,
• Miran Pogačar, Association of Internet Workers,
• Branka Anđelković, Public Policy Research Centre,
• Mario Reljanović, The Institute of Comparative Law,
• Blaž Gyoha, ÖGB – a trade union headquarters representative from Austria.

Workers engaged on platforms (outside of standard employment contracts) also participated at the meeting. They were interested in exchanging information to identify common and specific problems, discuss potential solutions and opportunities to improve their position in the labour market.
DigiDay was organized within the DiDaNet project, implemented by UGS NEZAVISNOST, SSSS and UPS in cooperation with trade unions’ headquarters from Austria, Slovenia, Ukraine, and Moldova, with the financial support of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Health and Consumer Protection. Aleksandra Vitorović and Bojana Bijelović Bosanac, who coordinate activities within the DiDaNet project in Serbia, moderated the discussion.
The fact that this is the second project on digitalization and increasingly flexible forms of work carried out by UGS NEZAVISNOST and SSSS in cooperation with the trade union headquarters in Austria shows that unions are aware of the consequences of the unregulated position of workers on the internet and the need to participate in solving the problems of these workers based on solidarity principles.

Why is it important to discuss the position of workers in Serbia working through platforms?
A simple answer to this question was offered at the very beginning of the discussion by Duško Vuković from the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia, who pointed out the size of this labour force in Serbia, which, along with Ukraine, Romania, Moldova and Northern Macedonia, belongs to the world’s top of platform workers. Despite various myths about the benefits of such work, research by the Public Policy Research Centre and recent protests by internet workers across Serbia have shown that a large number of these people are in a precarious position, except for a small group of those registered as entrepreneurs with access to health and social care. Zoran Stojiljković from UGS NEZAVISNOST reminded of the fact that this type of economy does not account for the preparation for a task, but pays strictly controlled, supervised, terribly exhausting and frustrating work, where only “a piece of work done” gets paid. Nobody thinks about the preparation, about the previous knowledge and skills brought into the work. With the pandemic outbreak due to the spread of the Covid-19 virus, another group of precarious platform workers became visible in Serbia, those who work through mobile applications for food delivery and passenger transport. For the first time, their problems were explored in a new study by the Center and through the “Machine” portal articles. “Our workers who work on these platforms – if it is their permanent work engagement – work about 60 hours a week, they do not have insurance in case of an accident, and do not have the right to paid sick leave and paid vacation. All that is a cost that goes out of their pocket,” said Branka Anđelković from the Public Policy Research Centre.
In short, both groups of workers, to a greater or lesser extent, are characterized by the impossibility of exercising the rights arising from the Decent Work Agenda of the International Labour Organization – 8 hours of work, the right to decent wages, access to health social protection, the right to occupational safety and trade union organizing and advocating. This is a particular problem because in Serbia, as union representatives and labour law experts have pointed out, the current Labour Law only recognizes employees with a standard employment contract and employers in the traditional sense, which platforms are not. Hence, although Serbia has ratified International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions 87 and 98, which guarantee the freedom of association to all workers, which further implies their introduction into national legislation, in Serbia, this right is exercised only by employees, that is, those with a signed employment contract – not other workers. This practically deprives a growing army of workers in non-standard forms of work of the possibility of trade union association and protection.
From the unions’ point of view, dealing with the position of workers on platforms is important for several reasons; first, due to the increase in flexible forms of work engaging a quarter of the workforce in Serbia, including part-time workers in the platform/gig economy. In this regard, the question arises: can trade unions manage to be what the Labour Law does not allow them to be at the moment – to represent the interests of all working people?
An additional key issue pointed out in the discussion is “codification,” i.e. treatment and classification of workers on platforms as workers or self-employed, i.e. entrepreneurs.
The third highlighted issue was how to define the other contracting party in the employment relationship, given that it (an employer) is often anonymous, not disclosed and often on another continent.
“We cannot do that effectively without an international social and trade union network. Without that solidarity, we cannot reach those people; we cannot approach them. We cannot do without a manifesto of work and minimum standards defined that are financial, social and other nature related to the work process,” said Zoran Stojiljković, president of UGS NEZAVISNOST.

Who is an employer, and are workers really workers or entrepreneurs?
However, the key to these dilemmas is whether workers in these forms of work are forced or voluntarily self-employed. Speaking of this, it is important to understand “algorithmic management,” i.e. potential subordination as the basis for determining employment status.
There were three standpoints related to this dilemma: first, if workers working on internet platforms are a heterogeneous group and whether they feel like entrepreneurs or as workers regarding their employment rights having in mind if their platform job is their main job or a secondary and occasional one. To a lesser extent, the same applies to delivery workers who work through mobile delivery applications with more straightforward elements for determining their status.
Trade unions, researchers, and experts believe that it is very important for these workers to exercise their social rights and have the right to pension and union activities. “However, what we learn from these workers is that they do not believe in the achievability of these goals and the principles of dignified work,” said Branka Anđelković from the Public Policy Research Center. What motivates these workers to work on platforms is relatively decent income and the flexibility they appreciate, despite working 60 hours a week. Also, they believe it is very easy to enter that particular labour market as platforms are absolutely non-discriminatory. “For workers working through mobile delivery apps, at this point, the only thing that matters is that they have compensation in the event of an accident during delivery and that they don’t have to pay parking fines, and that’s about it.”
While interlocutors from trade unions, the research community, and labour law experts favour the idea that the rights of these workers should be dealt with through the Labour Law, the representative of the Serbian Association of Employers, Ljiljana Pavlović, advocated that workers on online platforms should be helped by reducing their tax duties facilitating the conditions for starting and developing their businesses. “The status and position of digital workers must certainly be regulated in some way, but in order to be able to seriously locate some key recommendations in that direction, we first need to understand the needs of people working on platforms, and among them, there are those who really do not want to have that kind of organization that looks like work engagement. They simply want to decide independently when they will work, who they will work with, how much they will work, which is far from what standard employment is, and then it is very difficult to put these people in such a framework. In that sense, we suggest that we “legalize” all those who want to determine when, how much and with whom they will work, in some way, through the establishment of their own entrepreneurial businesses,” said Pavlović.
Further in the course of the discussion, there were talks about the options that would potentially be adopted by the announced Law on Flexible Forms of Work and European practices that also manoeuvre around this dilemma – an entrepreneur, self-employed or worker.
Miran Pogačar, president of the Association of Internet Workers (URI), said the heterogeneity of online workers, some of whom felt like entrepreneurs and others like workers, made it difficult to formulate a common position for all members at a time when the Tax Administration threatened to charge them taxes for the previous five years. Slogans supporting unity were backed up by people who feel like workers and those who would rather be entrepreneurs, those for whom it is their main job and others for whom working on the internet is an additional or occasional job. This also made it difficult to come up with an acceptable solution for all in the long run. While the URI management thinks that it is most important for internet workers to be recognized in the Labour Law and for their tax duties to be harmonized with the fact that they are, according to the current legal solution, obliged to pay taxes both as employees and employers, for the Government of Serbia, in Pogačar’s opinion, the decision to absolve them of part of the tax debt was only a temporary pact after which freelancers are expected to register as entrepreneurs or limited liability companies. “Our position as an organization guided by trade union principles was primarily that the status of workers who work over the internet must be in accordance with their rights,” said Pogačar. With that ambition, URI entered the working group for drafting the Law on Flexible Forms of Work, which should be passed by the beginning of 2022.

What is there to expect from the Law on Flexible Forms of Work?
Professor Mario Reljanović expressed his fear that the law on flexible work will be introduced on a small scale, without changes to the Labour Law. If you look at the results of the negotiations between the Government of Serbia and URI on the taxation of freelancers from that point of view, it seems that “practically, it is coercion aimed at motivating online workers to become entrepreneurs,” but then the question arises what happens to those who earn “little enough” and cannot afford it.
“We need a substantial change, which can only come through the Labour Law which is to channel workers back to the Labour Law, as well as to channel the issue of workers in terms of the definition of workers, that is, everyone who invests their work must exercise some basic work rights. Today’s division into employment and working without an employment contract is meaningless and quite unique in legislation in general – both in the world and in Europe and, of course – unrecognized, even in the European Union, which will have to change,” said Reljanović.
“National legislation in several European countries provides examples for resolving the status of workers who work through mobile delivery applications, but not workers on the internet whose employer is not registered and has no assets in the Republic of Serbia,” said Reljanović.
At the European level, there has been a public debate for several years on the legal framework for regulating work on platforms and within EU institutions. An example of this action is the EU Directive 2019/1152 on transparent and predictable working conditions in the EU, hinting that platform workers must be considered employees if certain criteria are fulfilled. The second so-called Regulation 2019/1150 promoting fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation service is directly related to the operation of platforms. However, it only covers the self-employed providing services to consumers, which means that the basic problem of poor working conditions in the platform economy remains unresolved at the European level, said Blaž Gyoha of the ÖGB union headquarters in Austria. For their part, unions are getting increasingly involved in supporting these workers, so the ÖGB provides support to deliverers through mobile food delivery apps and space where they can meet and organize themselves.
He pointed out that there is a draft regulation on platform work, with a key provision that a worker on a platform should be treated as an employee, unless they state otherwise – as well as that the burden of proving the relationship between platforms and workers is on platforms. Another idea of this Draft concerns legal clarification of the place of work. Other issues proposed to be regulated are the obligation of equal pay, legal clarification that the time of daily job search on virtual platforms and time spent on standby should be considered working hours, the prohibition of restricting competition during and after activities on platforms, and unjustified account disabling or unknown (unidentified) deactivations of user accounts on platforms.
However, many European countries tend to classify platform workers as “self-employed,” except in France, Spain and some areas of Italy, where courts often contribute to exposing the argument that the platform economy is so new and innovative that it does not fit into existing regulations and that all platform workers are self-employed.
Decisions concerning the reclassification of platforms as employers and delivery workers or drivers as employees (from traditional labour law) are not only an important step for those working in the platform economy but also for establishing new definitions of employers and workers and/or employees.
“The European Union does not insist on a unified solution for all member states, but rather suggests a framework, and it is up to social partners at the national level, practically, to provide a model through negotiations and agreements that would lead to a guaranteed corpus of labour and social rights for all workers/employees through the drafting and implementation of national legislation,” pointed out Aleksandra Vitorović from UGS NEZAVISNOST. This was also pointed out by DigiDay participants from Serbia and the region, who sent questions to the speakers or commented throughout the discussion. For example, Natalija Havelka from the Center for Peace in Osijek pointed out that the issue of platform work is not legally regulated in Croatia and that a proposal to amend the Labour Law is currently being prepared, so it is assumed that the public debate will offer possibilities for resolving this issue. In that context, the opinion of the European Commission, which launched a new round of consultations with the social partners on resolving this issue in January this year, is expected to be especially important.
Several freelancers from the audience asked whether platform/gig workers are closer to employees or entrepreneurs and stated that there is a tendency of the state for freelancers to be “pushed” into the status of entrepreneurs at any cost. “On the contrary, I don’t want to be an entrepreneur; I just want to work normally and make a living from it,” said one freelancer.

What is the solution for Serbia?
What are the potential solutions that could be offered in the future, what are the necessary steps that could lead us to a solution, what are the actors that could implement those steps, or that would help us reach that goal?
For Reljanović, the most important thing is that there is a possibility of choice for workers on platforms. “Will they be directed towards self-employment or will they be qualified as employees, or will we, perhaps, design the third form or be the first country with an intermediate form – which are neither entrepreneurs nor employed, but are characterized by lower contribution rates, with fewer benefits from social security, remains still to be decided,” said Reljanović.
“From our research position, we would say that workers who work in this digital economy are workers. One of the arguments is that by pushing them into an entrepreneurial environment, all costs are transferred to workers, regardless of whether they are workers on the internet or workers in a geography in which Serbia is now located. And for that really simple reason, we believe that the only right way is to consider the possibility of introducing the term “independent worker,” which has been adopted by some other countries,” said Branka Anđelković from the Center and announced that this research institution will soon come out with the first estimate of the number of workers on the internet from Serbia.
Duško Vuković from SSSS and Zoran Stojiljković from UGS NEZAVISNOST stated that the unions, together with platform workers’ representatives, will participate in creating economic policies through the adoption of laws, whose goal should be a complete change of philosophy and tax system so that solutions are more favourable to strengthening solidarity and protecting labour and social rights.
“We have over-exploited workers who are hired for very little money in extremely flexible forms and who need some kind of union or quasi-union organization. We have a large number of people who want to regulate their labour rights and contractual obligations, both tax and social ones, for which unions are competent organizations, but also state bodies that want to reduce those risks of self-employment. Also, we need to see if there is really some room for organization within the employers’ union,” said Zoran Stojiljković, emphasizing that “we must find some kind of labour or social regulation jointly while adhering to the European framework, as well as corrections of national legislation which is the obligation of the countries in the process of the EU accession.”
Miran Pogačar from URI also agreed that a joint fight with the unions is needed, not only in Serbia but at the international level too. However, he said that the state is not a good partner for both platform and “off-platform” workers. URI is considering establishing its own platform for work and organization under its own – better conditions than offered by foreign platforms to represent the interests of workers and work security.
While closing DigiDay, Aleksandra Vitorović and Bojana Bijelović Bosanac, coordinators of the DiDaNet project in Serbia, emphasized the importance of broader and timely discussions on the issues brought up by the gathering and called on the participants to continue cooperation in the search for comprehensive solutions that would make precarious work on platforms more dignified.

At the round table ‘Influence of the Pandemic on Employees in the Republic of Serbia’ organized by the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia it was pointed out that Corona intensified and deepened inequalities and poverty in the society. Also, it put physical and mental health of the population at risk because of which economic and OHS measures are necessary.
The study conducted by the CATUS expert team shows that the pandemic affected the decrease of GDP (1%), increase of the budget deficit (8,1%), increase of the public debt (57,4% of GDP), inequalities in revenue and poverty while the rising trend of precarious forms of employment, which previously started, continued in 2020.
According to the expert team leader Ph.D. Rajko Kosanović the most vulnerable groups were employees in informal jobs, employees in micro entreprises, employees in the sector of traffic, warehousing, accommodation services and catering, as well as employees in the private sector.
Kosanović explained that more than a third of workers were in informal employment, the number of those who worked from home increased from 4% before the pandemic to over 12% during the crisis while the labour legislation didn’t follow this trend. Finally, he concluded by saying that around 30% of interviewees felt that the pandemic affected their psychological health negatively and among them women and individuals older than 35 formed the majority.
Numerous speakers included the CATUS President Ljubisav Orbović, who emphasized that the main characteristics of the pandemic were fear of losing your job, economic downfall, social and economic inequalities; President of the Association of Economists of Belgrade Gojko Rikalović; State Secretary in the Ministry of Health Zoran Radovanović and Nada Novaković, senior associate in the Institute of Social Sciences.
Mrs Novaković said that the pandemic revealed all faults of the health policy, having in mind that less than 5% of the GDP was invested in the health system and health workers were leaving the country. She noticed that legislation wasn’t adjusted to the changes that happened during the pandemic, primarily to work from home. Workers were working on their computers from their homes and thus put their health at risk. They weren’t compensated because they worked in difficult conditions. Work intensified because they had to work harder for the same amount of money while their work wasn’t valued.
She estimated that the crisis had only deepened the inequalities even more and put the burden on the weakest: pensioners, working class and unskilled workers.
Last but not the least, ILO Coordinator for Serbia Jovan Protić made it clear that it was extremely important to regulate work from home as an increasing number of people were working from home. Also, the Law on Occupational Health and Safety needs to include a more precise definition of mental health because this situation showed us that feeling uncertainty, fear and alientation were predominant emotions that harmed people’s health in general.

Even though a compromise has been reached, for the time being, the question arises whether this is just the lull before a new storm or just one of the battles in the “war” between the Tax Administration and workers on the internet.
On April 28, 2021, members of the Serbian Parliament adopted the Law on Amendments to the Law on Personal Income Tax and the Law on Amendments to the Law on Contributions for Mandatory Social Insurance, which significantly reduced the debt based on the income of freelancers accrued from 2015 to end of 2021. As announced, a certain part of the changes will be applied from January 1, 2022, with the idea that, in the meantime, freelancers will be able to choose either the status of an entrepreneur or to set up a limited liability company. The drafting of a law that would regulate non-standard forms of work was also announced, with representatives of the Association of Internet Workers (URI) invited to the working group for drafting the law.
The problem of taxation of freelancers, which suddenly became a burning issue on October 14, 2020, after the decision of the Tax Administration of Serbia to collect 5-year retroactive tax debt of natural persons earning income from abroad by working for foreign employers, was temporarily ended. Namely, an undetermined number of freelancers did not pay personal income tax based on income earned abroad, either due to lack of information, due to uneven interpretations of tax authorities or since the existing tariff was disproportionately large in relation to the earned income. The details regarding the previous tax treatment are too complex to be covered in this text, so you can read about them here.
The Association of Internet Workers (URI) was set up simultaneously with the announcement of the Tax Administration. The Association articulated the demands of freelancers and organized a series of public debates, campaigns on social networks and protests in front of the Parliament at the same time. As a result, the number of people has surpassed all gatherings of this kind organized in the last year in Serbia. At the same time, those were some of the few recorded protests in Europe demanding the regulation of the employment status of freelancers working on global digital platforms.
While negotiating with the Government of Serbia, URI advocated that the Law on Personal Income Tax passed in 2001 does not specify the category of income earned by working online or income from abroad within the framework of Article 85, “Other income.” The Association thought that the prescribed tax of up to 50% is too high for any income from abroad. Also, the Association advocated that the internet is where almost one hundred thousand people earn their main or additional income, and that the law passed in 2001 could not be the basis for taxation, and that there is a need to change it.
The Association also claimed that excessive non-compliance with tax regulations resulted from the legal vacuum and that state institutions did not promptly recognize a growing category of workers on the internet and did not legally define their status, rights, and obligations. In addition, URI and some other experts believed that the Tax Administration did not exercise their advisory role in previous years, nor were they focused on informing taxpayers and educating citizens about tax obligations. Also, in previous years, the Tax Administration did not exercise its control role; that is, it did not inform or warn taxpayers to settle their tax liabilities.
According to a 2015 World Bank survey and some other surveys, Serbia, compared to the rest of the world, has one of the largest communities of freelancers working through digital platforms indeed, measured by the share of this workforce in the total active workforce. Many foreign and domestic studies have documented this phenomenon and pointed out that this area has not been regulated properly. In the countries of the Western Balkans, with a history of attempts to collect such taxes retroactively, more favourable tax solutions have been introduced meanwhile. In particular, this has been the case in Montenegro and Northern Macedonia. In addition to those, the tax treatment of these taxpayers is also generally more favourable in most other European countries.
The solution was adopted after several suspensions of negotiations and several meetings between the highest representatives of the Government of Serbia, the Ministry of Finance and the Tax Administration with the Association of Internet Workers and some other associations. As a result, the income for the period from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2021, became the subject of tax exemption of up to RSD 384,000 per year for royalties from the copyright and related rights and for contracted fees for the work carried out, which are the subject of self-taxation. Additionally, there is a reduction of the tax base for standard costs in the amount of up to 50% revenues exceeding the introduced tax exemption. These changes erased the debt of freelancers with lower income almost completely and significantly reduced taxes for those freelancers whose income was below 500 euros per month. The latter will repay the determined tax debt in 120 monthly instalments, that is, over 10 years.
Also, an agreement was reached that taxpayers’ years of service would be accounted for based on paid contributions for mandatory social insurance, which was not the case until then. The way to do this calculation should be determined by by-laws.
From January 1, 2022, the tax base on such income will be determined by reducing the gross income generated in a given quarter by normative costs in the amount of three times the amount of tax exemption provided for salaries (which would currently amount to a total of RSD 54,900). In the meantime, other requests of freelancers concerning labour legislation should be addressed through the working group for drafting the law on the regulation of non-standard forms of work. The representatives of URI advocated the regulation of these rights through labour legislation.
Many associations and the media supported the freelancers’ protest, including the two largest unions – the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia (SSSS) and the Trade Union Confederation “Independence” (UGS NEZAVISNOST) – as well as the Serbian Association of Employers, NGOs such as the Association for the Protection of Constitutionality and Law and “Kreni-Promeni” Team. Tax experts had different views on the possibilities to solve the problem of the incurred debt, although it can be said that there was a consensus that the existing legal solution imposed disproportionately high taxes on freelancers. Some of the freelancers who were not satisfied with such an outcome separated from URI and organized a separate association, Internet Workers of Serbia (IRS), advocating a complete write-off of the tax debt incurred in the last five years. The IRS said in a statement that the association was founded by activists who had been protesting, camping, and fighting for months for a fair solution and write-off of alleged debts of all internet workers, as well as for defining an acceptable model of taxation in the future – which has not been achieved with this deal as it refers to “only one part of internet workers” and “does not solve the legal status of this community in the future.”
Taxing freelancers who generate income through global digital platforms is an extremely complex issue because it represents a worldwide phenomenon and changes the classic relations between the employer and the employee who are taxpayers within the same national borders. Platforms themselves deny that they are employers and consider themselves only intermediaries between freelancers, as self-employed, and their clients. While this can be argued for some occupations because there are elements of an entrepreneurial relationship in their work, in cases of platforms setting workers the condition that they cannot work for other platforms, there is a clear relationship of subordination that characterizes the employer-worker relationship. Since platforms deny having the role of an employer, the burden of paying taxes and contributions is entirely on those who work through those very platforms. In addition to these, there are other dimensions of the complexity of determining the status of people working through global digital platforms. For some, this job is an additional one (in addition to other regular offline jobs they have), and for some, this job is a predominant or only source of income. This means that one solution does not suit everyone.
Some labour law experts and researchers argue that non-standard forms of work, including freelancers, should be regulated by the future Labour Law as the current law does not adequately recognize workers on the internet, nor does it define their rights and obligations.
URI advocates that online workers should be entitled to social protection, including the right to sick, pregnancy, and maternity leave. The current Law on Mandatory Social Insurance stipulates that persons receiving the agreed compensation are contributors, but – until the entry into force of the Law on Amendments to the Law on Pension and Disability Insurance in December 2019 – a natural person who does not have the status of an employee could not be in the capacity of an insured individual, i.e. their years of service are not accounted for nor do they have health insurance. This issue has not been completely resolved to this day. However, it is expected that by-laws will determine how years of service will be dealt with in proportion to the paid part of their obligations in the case of internet workers.
The deadline for the adoption of all legal regulations that will define the future status of workers on the internet has been put off to January 1, 2022. The terms agreed so far will remain valid until then.
The Association of Internet Workers believes that the solution they reached in the negotiations with the Government will bring relief to many freelancers, although it is far from ideal. They announced that they would ask the working group for the adoption of the law on non-standard forms of work to “regulate the legal status and introduce a fair model of taxation that will ensure our future.”

There is proof that Covid-19 is a systematic disease that affects all organs and all tissues and due to this it should become a professional disease. At the round table organized by the CATUS it was pointed out that health workers, who were most burdened by the pandemic, were actually at most risk of getting infected.
According to the President of the Trade Union of Employees in Health and Social Care Institutions of Serbia, Zoran Savić, it is justified to establish Covid-19 as a professional disease for those working in health and social care. Even though it is difficult to determine whether employees were infected at their work place or somewhere else, it is possible to do this having state support.
CATUS Council Vice-President Duško Vuković emphasized that CATUS carried out promotional activities in various Serbian cities in order to raise public's awareness of the importance of healthy and safe work and initiate the topic of Covid-19 as a professional disease. 'Employees who were infected by Covid-19 at workplace and applied all the procedures to prove it should receive 100% compensation throughout their sick leave', said Vuković.
Professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Vice Rector of the University of Belgrade, Petar Bulat confirmed that in the case of health employees we could definitely talk about a professional disease. ‘Furthermore, European data show that the risk is significantly higher for health employees than the general population. In England the risk is 3.3 times higher for health employees and in Belgium it is around 2.5 times higher’, he pointed out. He added that European countries treated Covid-19 differently, either as a professional disease or injury at work.
‘By definition, professional disease occurs due to a long-term exposure. So, Covid-19 doesn’t fit into this definition. On the other hand, Hepatitis B doesn’t occur because of long-term exposure, but is still on the list of professional disease. Consequently, there’s room to consider Covid-19 a professional disease’, explained Professor Bulat.

This is great news for all employees – last year’s annual leave is valid till the end of June 2022.
This is especially important for doctors and nurses working in the covid system as they haven’t been able to take a single day off for almost two years. Aleksandar Stojanović, a Director of the Health Center Palilula assures that everybody will be able to take holiday, no pressure whatsoever.
Miloš Vučković from the portal Radnik.rs estimates that the state has given a decent answer because it accepted the fact that the majority of workers weren’t able to use their leave due to the emergency state.
However, those who work in the private sector usually have malevolent employers that partially deprived them of holiday in the state of pandemic. CATUS Council Secretary Zoran Mihajlović warns it could lead to the accummulation of days off in the upcoming period.
Regardless of the sector, an employee may turn to the Labour Inspection if they think their rights have been violated and if they haven't managed to agree with their employer about the extended term for annual leave.

As a socially responsible organization, Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia focuses on the issue whether there is a possibility to include COVID-19 into the list of professional diseases in order to protect primarily health workers who risk their lives in the fight against corona virus.
We think that the decision to include COVID-19 into the list of professional diseases would considerably improve workers’ financial status, having in mind that professional diseases are treated in a way that a worker is provided with a 100% compensation of salary during the sick leave, but it would also contribute to a more humane and more responsible attitude of the society towards the health of Serbian employees.
Due to this cause, Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia organized a round table a few days ago. The round table was attended by the experts in occupational medicine, representatives of the Government – Ministry of Health and Ministry of Labour, expert public and the media.

After many months of negotiations the company ‘Gorenje Valjevo’ signed a collective agreement with the Autonomous Metal Workers’ Trade Union – Trade Union ‘Gorenje doo Valjevo’ and Association of Free and Independent Trade Unions – Trade Union ‘ASNS Gorenje’. This is the second collective agreement, valid for three years.
The agreement sets the ground for the implementation of new systematization while improving legal regulations at the same time, through which clear rules for the calculation of bonuses based on achieved business results have been adopted.
‘This new collective agreement is the result of mature social dialogue which is beneficial for all employees and the company. Transparent social dialogue is a key factor for the development of both employees and the company. European factories in Slovenia, Serbia and Czech Republic are extremely important for the production capacity of this group with 80,000 employees around the world, which is the leader in the development of new industrial technology’, said the Vice-President of Hisense International and Executive Vice-President of Hisense Europe - Stanka Pejanović.
According to her, continuous cooperation with trade unions contributed to stable business during 2020 when additional 600 workers were employed.
President of the Autonomous Metal Workers’ Trade Union - Slobodan Stanojlović underlined that it was a perfect example of how the interests of both employees and employer could be reconciled through social dialogue. He added that the first collective agreement, signed three years ago, provided for additional days of annual leave for different categories of workers, paid leave in various situations, as well as the coverage of employee’s training expenses.
In 2018 company Hisense became a majority owner of Gorenje, with this of the factory in Valjevo, too. It started working 15 years ago. Today it’s got 1,900 employees and it cooperates with 60 local suppliers.

More than a half of goals that are defined by the three-year Decent Work Program for the Republic of Serbia have already been achieved or are in the process of being achieved, said the ILO Coordinator for Serbia, Jovan Protić.
‘Drafting the new Labour Law will definitely be put on hold because the Ministry of Labour won’t start working on it till the end of the next year’, he explained.
National Decent Work Programs are main instruments that ILO uses to provide support for its members. It represents a mid-term framework for planning that directs the work of ILO in line with the priorities agreed between the government, trade unions and employers.
Decent Work Program for Serbia is prepared in consultations with the Government of Serbia, as well as social partners, in order to create new jobs, extend social protection, guarantee labour rights and promote social dialogue as a key component of economic and social policy. At the same time Program supports national development programs within the Employment and Social Reform Programme of Serbia and National Gender Equality Strategy. It takes further steps aimed at achieving SDGs and defines the ILO contribution, especially concerning inclusive labour market and decent employment.
Even though the Program sets long-term goals, they are divided into single steps and social partners may ask for their suggestions to be included into the Program. For instance, the analysis of harmonization of Serbian labour legislation with the ILO Convention 190 on the elimination of violence and harassment in the world of work was conducted regardless of not being envisaged by the Program.
‘This is where the initiative of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia for the ratification of the ILO Convention 190 was welcomed’, Protić pointed out.
In 2022, which is the final year of the Program, social partners will start the talks so that the new Program would be signed at the beginning of 2023.

Association of Pensioners’ Trade Unions of Serbia sent an appeal to the Government representatives and line ministries to stop further sales of Serbian spas and rehabilitation centers that were mostly built with the money paid for the contributions of today’s pensioners i.e. employees at the time. As they say in the letter sent to the line ministries of labour, tourism, finance, economy, the sales of specialized hospitals should be stopped and re-examined because their transfer into private ownership would considerably hinder treatment and recovery.
The sales of Mataruška and Bogutovačka Spas happened at the time of corona pandemic when the health system of Serbia showed its full vitality and through further privatization the state will put at risk the purpose of these facilities. New owner could give up its health service if it brought less profit than the expected.
In the Association they think that the sales of spas without the vision of a long-term development of spa tourism isn’t the same as the sales of an entreprise because it’s got a broader and far-reaching effects and that’s why the purpose and the aim due to which these spas were built must not be disregarded. Furthermore, the Pension Fund is deprived of its property, which is an additional reason to prevent the sales.
– We are aware that after having returned spas into the ownership of the Pension Fund through court decisions, they will still be in a bad state as they have lost their value. That is why huge investments, which cannot be obtained without private capital, are necessary for their revitalization. However, there is also the possibility to keep their basic purpose by choosing adequate privatization model. Since spas represent natural resource which is still wholesome and has a potential to develop local communities, it would be a waste to give up managing them.
Not only does this problem interest pensioners, but it surely interests all employees who are paying their contributions into the Pension Fund. Also, after having conducted a detailed analysis of the sales, the Anti-Corruption Council stated there were numerous mistakes and violations of law. It suggested that the sales should be stopped and in cases, where there were violations of law, privatization should be annulled.

Application ‘Labour Rights for You’ is meant to be used by young people who are finishing secondary school education or their studies at the faculty and are about to step into the labour market. But it is also meant to be used by experienced workers who want to additionally consolidate their knowledge.
Recently there have been fewer and fewer regular jobs. There is an increasing number of young workers on precarious and untypical jobs. Deterioration of labour standards is supported by the relativization and stretching of labour rights little by little to the point where workers take what is offered to them and do not insist on the scope of rights covered by law. If workers know about their rights, the first pre-condition for change has been realized. We want to create the wish for active participation and personal contribution to the improvement of workers’ rights and status. That is why ‘Labour Rights for You’ will be interesting and useful for students, workers and trade union members.
The aim of the application is to increase the interest, improve understanding and knowledge about labour rights and trade unions through two segments. The first one is a fun, educational quiz – a game through which you consolidate and increase your knowledge by repetition. By earning points in the quiz the users are motivated to repeat the game as more points allow them to take a higher trade union ‘position’. In the each of 11 chapters and in the Mix-game there are two types of help that can be used (‘Skip’ and ’50:50’). Answers to all the questions may be found in the second segment – Guide on Labour Rights. The guide consists of 11 chapters covering labour rights that are presented in a simple and accessible way. Sentences are short and topics are divided so that every user, regardless of their age and work experience, can be informed or reminded of important labour issues. Here are some areas: commencement of employment; unstandard jobs; unregistered work; annex to the contract; salaries; termination of employment; trade union foundation and collective agreements.
Application ‘Labour Rights for You’ is free of charge. After having been downloaded, it can be used without internet. It is easy to understand and functionable. It can be downloaded to all devices with Android operational system. This way the trade union is closer to everyone regadless of their membership status and ‘skips’ physical distance. By providing information we contribute to the democratization and spread of workers’ knowledge of their rights and possible activities. We also get them closer to trade union organization and affiliation. ‘Labour Rights for You’ is the part of the project ‘Strengthening CATUS Youth Section’ that CATUS is conducting with the support of Swedish foundation ‘Olof Palme Center’.

Within DiDaNet Project (Digital Danube Network), TU Confederations from Austria, Slovenia, Serbia, Moldavia and Ukraine cooperate on subject of digitalisation in connection with the challenges and opportunities arising from the development in the labour market. One of the risks of digitalisation are precarious working conditions which primarily affect platform workers who are basically forced into bogus self-employment and who do not have adequate social protection.
Lead partner within Project is Austrian Trade Union Federation OGB, and partners in Serbia are CATUS/SSSS and TUC „Nezavisnost“, with support from national Ministry of Labour and from Serbian Association of Employers. The following text on delivery workers/riders for Digital platforms was created within Serbian DiDaNet Project Team.
Digital platforms such as Glovo, Wolt, Donesi, and CarGo treat workers as "independent service providers" and not employees, bypassing their rights to union representation, guaranteed to those with standard employment contracts.
Regulations concerning employee and labor rights in the Republic of Serbia, including the Labor Law, use the term "employee" instead of the term "worker," which implies signing a standard employment contract and guarantee union member rights only to "employees." Therefore, certain groups of workers, especially those engaged through atypical forms of work such as digital platform delivery services, are deprived of the right to formal union representation, and consequently, to collective negotiation, strike, and union protection.
Over the past decade, there has been an explosion of work in the platform economy worldwide. Work with the mediation of the platform has penetrated all areas of economic activity and changed the understanding of work and employment radically. Like many other countries, Serbia has not remained immune to such a phenomenon. In addition to freelancers working on online digital platforms, the number of workers in Serbia has recently increased as a result of mobile applications for food delivery such as Glovo, Donesi, Wolt, and passenger transport such as CarGo.
Most of these platforms have been active in Serbia since 2018 or 2019, except for the company Donesi (which is now part of the chain Delivery Hero), which was founded in 2006, but it introduced its mobile application only in 2014. Despite them entering the market relatively late, the Covid-19 pandemic has had the wind at their back, which led to an increase in their user base and an increase in the number of people working across the platforms.
The first research by the Center for Public Policy Research on workers through mobile applications indicates that many of the rights from the standard employment relationship are not available to them. Nevertheless, platforms offering services via mobile applications have attracted a significant number of workers interested in replacing permanent employment and social and health insurance with better earnings and more flexible working hours.
In Serbia, these jobs are taken up primarily by middle-aged men with relatively long work experience with secondary or higher education. In contrast, women rarely do these jobs. Students generally work part-time, while others work full-time.
Due to the lack of jobs and poor conditions prevailing in the domestic labor market, platforms for passenger transport and food delivery, in particular, are relatively attractive work opportunities in Serbia. They offer a continuous job offer, allowing workers to earn a good income and a certain degree of financial stability.
According to the Center's study results, such workers can earn between RSD 60,000 and 200,000 a month (€500–1.700), which is far more than those people can make at a workplace with a similar skill level. This is particularly pronounced among workers without formal qualifications or a university degree, who nevertheless are a minority among providers via mobile applications.
While students usually work part-time, the people for whom this is their primary job, the working day lasts from eight to 12, or even 15 hours. Every month, those who work the most could collect 200 to 300 hours per month, compared to most employees who work about 170 hours. Finally, when everything has been added up, earnings are just an illusion, some say.
This is because these RSD 60,000 (€500) and 200,000 (€1.700) a month come with a high price. First, although they determine all the rules and working conditions, the platforms do not employ workers directly but through intermediaries who usually offer workers precarious employment contracts, i.e., temporary or occasional employment contracts, which typically read for far fewer working hours than they actually achieve. Besides, some workers do not have any employment contracts at all or do not know what they have signed. Their relationship with intermediaries comes down to paying a certain percentage to agencies (usually from 8% to 15%) to get their money on hand and less often on the account. Few workers have also registered as entrepreneurs, but these levies are too high for their earning level, so – through one entrepreneurial activity – one registered entrepreneur and several of their colleagues usually work and get paid in cash. Therefore, this type of work in Serbia is characterized by non-compliance with the principles of decent work, i.e., limited social protection, safety and health at work, stability of the workplace, and social dialogue opportunities.
A number of workers have told us they do not care about it. Some of the workers interviewed by the Center said that they do not need health insurance "because they are healthy" or pension because "the pension will probably not even exist when I grow old." However, when they get injured (traffic accidents in this business are widespread), many are entirely left without income and treatment opportunities unless they are insured through a family member.
Secondly, it is difficult to say whether this amount of RSD 60,000 (€500) and RSD 200,000 (€1.700) is the gross or net amount. Namely, workers use this money to pay for their meals, the costs of purchasing or repairing vehicles, gasoline and spare parts, parking fees, and as we said, they usually do not have paid sick leave or vacation, so they see them as an expense.
They use their private vehicles as a means of work – cars, motorcycles or bicycles, with no depreciation costs included in their earnings. They pay parking fines themselves, which is sometimes inevitable due to delivery issues. Unfortunately, problems related to occupational health and safety are not recognized; they are only aware of traffic safety issues.
At the global level, a number of countries in the world are trying to respond to the challenges posed by platform work, both online and through mobile applications. Some governments enact sectoral and competition laws, labor regulations, and rules that apply to online platforms specifically. Serbia still has not taken a stance on any of these issues.

Once again Coronavirus epidemic has prevented us from traditionally getting together in the streets and at the squares to send the message that we shall not agree to low salaries, limitless working hours and to demand safe work and labour rights; we shall not tolerate exploitation, oppressive measures and dismissals of trade union activists. Every day and on every occasion we shall keep on demanding the same thing – dignity of work and workers.
Citizens and workers of Serbia – Happy Labour Day!
Ljubisav Orbović,
President of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia

On the occasion of April 27 – CATUS Day, a ceremonial session of the CATUS Council was organised in order to mark the 118th anniversary of our organisation.
Besides the members of Council, Statutory and Auditing Committees, presidents of trade union federations and regional trade union councils, the session was also attended by the Minister of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs of Serbia Darija Kisić Tepavčević, President of the Employers’ Association of Serbia Miloš Nenezić, Director of the Agency for Peaceful Settlement of Labour Disputes of Serbia Ivica Lazović, Director of Labour Inspectorate and his substitute, Milan Cvetkov and Saša Perišić, Secretary of the Social and Economic Council of Serbia Dušan Petrović.
Among the guests there were also ILO Coordinator for Serbia, Jovan Protić, Country Program Director for Serbia at AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, Steven McCloud and former Country Program Director at AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, Laurie Clements.
In his speech CATUS President Ljubisav Orbović emphasized that it had been 118 years of efforts to protect workers' rights, fight for higher salaries and better living standard of all workers and citizens of Serbia. The biggest question, as President Orbović pointed out, is whether employers would tell their employees to return to the office or estimate that they don’t need many workers, which accounts for significant savings. Will atypical forms of work spread around even more while full-time work becomes a rare exception?
Trade union fears are justified because of the way laws are passed. We witness an increasing number of fixed-term contracts, occasional and temporary jobs, precarious and platform work where employers are most of the time invisible. How is the trade union supposed to fight for the rights of workers on these jobs if they themselves don't know who their employer is?
In the conclusion, Orbović explained that CATUS had always found the way to fight throughout all these years of its existence. He is also sure that CATUS has the capacity to respond to today's challenges thanks to timely actions, unity, solidarity, and consistency.

Works on the streets in the center of Belgrade are taking too long. Not only does it cause problems for citizens, who often avoid Dušanova street, but also employers who can’t find qualified work force. In order to put the pieces together, it’s necessary to find good workers and pay them adequately.
As the President of the Trade Union of Road Maintenance Industry Workers of Serbia - Duško Bošković says, sometimes a whole group of workers goes to Germany, 10-15 of them. There are not enough drivers and operators of construction machines. Fortunately, trade union managed to sign the branch collective agreement that is beneficial for workers. The agreement covers 60% of the work force in about twenty companies. Even some foreign companies signed it.
‘Salaries of engineers and working conditions in the country are not always what the engineers expect. Companies coming from abroad expect salaries to be even lower’, says Miljan Mikić, professor and owner of the company ‘Oruk’.
Migrations of work force are desireable in the world of capital. Our workers also leave because of organization and the way they are treated. For instance, they are being treated the same way as EU workers because Serbian workers are known for being able to perform multiple jobs for a single salary. The problem with our workers leaving the country and being replaced by workers from Turkey, Pakistan and India is that the new-comers are expected to provide maximum performance for a low salary, which puts workers’ lives at risk.
It’s hard to accept the fact that in the course of several years the profit of local companies within the whole economy has grown 14 times more than the salaries. This means that the world of capital would need to urgently become more humane.

Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia tends to raise not only employees’, but also employers’ and authority’s awareness so that healthy and safe working conditions would be secured at the time of pandemic, said the CATUS Council Vice-President Duško Vuković.
Together with the representatives of the Confederation of Trade Unions of the City of Novi Sad, headed by the President Vladimir Gvozdenović, he pointed out to the citizens the importance of occupational health and safety so that they would protect themselves from the corona virus and perform their tasks successfully.
This campaign, entitled ‘Stop Pandemic’ and carried out in the cities of Serbia, is organised as a promotion of the World Day for Health and Safety at Work in order to point to this extremely important topic, said Vuković to the media representatives.
We invite all employers to apply necessary measures so that workers would be safe at their work places, stressed Vuković.
The campaign is also supported by the President of Trade Union of Culture of Serbia Dragana Đorđević, who took part in the activities in Novi Sad.

As workers of the factory ‘Fiat Plastic’ are asking their employer to reinstate last year’s salary level, Autonomous Trade Union announced that the strike would be radicalised and a big gathering on April 24 in front of the City Council building in Kragujevac would be organised. President of the Trade Union and Strike Committee Zoran Miljković said that workers from Fiat factory in Kragujevac and cooperative firms are also expected to come.
This gathering will be a sign of support for the workers because of the ‘uncertainty’. Their demands are the following:the production of a new model in the Fiat factory in Kragujevac (FCA), more work and workers from Kragujevac not going to work in Slovakia.
Workers of ‘Fiat Plastic’, where bumpers for the model ‘Fiat 500L’ are produced, continued general strike being dissatisfied because of the reduction of salaries and lack of negotiations with the employer. They oppose the reduction of the vacation bonus and ask for the paid leave bonus to be equal to the one paid to the workers in FCA, i.e. 65% of the salary.
The Autonomous Trade Union explains that the reduction of salaries ensued when the trade union refused to sign collective agreement because it envisages the cancellation of the right to strike.

Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia organised the promotion of the occupational health and safety where citizens were acquainted with the importance of proper prevention so that they would save their lives and health at work.
This event marks the beginning of the international project, entitled ‘Actions and Campaigns of Trade Unions for safer jobs – Stop pandemics’ and carried out through the support of PanEuropean Regional Council of the International Trade Union Confederation and Swedish Trade Union Support Program ‘Union to Union’.
CATUS representatives pointed to the importance of OHS, distributed leaflets, demonstrated proper use of personal protective equipment at work and informed citizens about their rights to health and safety at work.
Campaign will continue next week when Novi Sad, Zrenjanin, Kragujevac, Kraljevo and Kruševac are visited.

Work from home has become the topic that trade unions, workers, employers, but also legislators deal with. The importance of this issue has been shown by a regional OHS workshop which has recently been organised with the support of the American Solidarity Center (AFL-CIO).
During the last year’s pandemic when the economy came to a standstill a significant number of employers sent their employees to work from home. According to the data of the Oxford Internet Institute, Serbia is ranked 11th in the world and 4th in Europe by the number of people working from home. Before the pandemic this form of work was usual for a limited number of employees. Namely, in Serbia less than 2% of people worked from home.
Labour law also includes the possibility of working from home (Article 42). However, this is a complex type of work which involves prior fulfillment of many legal, but also personal employee’s conditions. Therefore, not everyone can work from home, even if the work they do could theoretically be done outside employer’s premises. Work from home is a new, temporary and insufficiently defined situation that requires to be regulated more precisely because there are employers who intend to keep their employees working from home when the pandemic is over. What’s important is that employees mustn’t be paid less and have worse working conditions than those performing same or similar tasks in employer’s premises.
The biggest challenge for the trade union will be working conditions and employees’ rights, primarily regarding the control of working time, payment of salaries and corresponding benefits, as well as a formal recognition of the trade union as a negotiator for work from home, as well as work in the office. The question also is whether work from home was ordered by the employer or it’s self-employment. Therefore, analysts think that the third category of workers should be introduced – economically dependent workers who work for an employer but are self-employed. However, this category is not acceptable for the trade union as it is usually misused.
Undoubtedly, trade union faces the issue of trade union association of people working from home, collective bargaining and equal rights for all, setting work-life balance without discrimination and social exclusion. This will be trade union’s activity in the upcoming period as employers announce that they will keep organizing work from home even when the pandemic is over. On the other hand, employees consider this to be a temporary solution and they would rather get back to their offices as some employers are planning to impose redundancies.

The main topic of the second dialogue with the EU National Convention, held on March 29 through video link, was the realization of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within economic and social indicators and protection of health conditions.
Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić, who took part in the meeting, announced the establishment of a cross-sector group which will deal with SDGs envisaged by the UN 2030 Agenda. At the meeting it was underlined that systematic planning had to begin. Adjusting the goals to our conditions and harmonization with the EU integration process are the most important for us. SDGs are formulated in general terms and each country needs to adjust those goals to its own priorities.
Having in mind that nearly half a million people live below the absolute poverty line and the population older than 65, including those in rural areas, are particularly hard hit by poverty, we need to prioritize the following: world without poverty, famine, quality education and gender equality. That is why it is necessary to urgently make the strategy for the reduction of poverty. Besides the activities at the national level, activities of the Government and relevant ministries, a significant role in realizing those goals is played by trade unions, civil society organizations and local communities because 67% of subgoals are realized at local level.

Trade unions are asking the ILO Conference, which will be held in June 2021, to raise the OHS to the level of international labour standards, increase the responsibility of governments and employers and insist that more countries ratify key OHS Conventions.
This way the promises given in 2019 in the ILO Centenary Declaration, which was unanimously adopted by the governments, trade unions and employers, would be kept and workers’ health and safety would be protected. The highest independent international body of OHS experts, Collegium Ramazzini, calls on ILO to urgently implement the decisions made at the ILO Conference that took place in 2019. It would be ideal if it happened at the Conference in 2021.
„Hundreds of millions of workers around the world are injured at work. Milions have died. This massacre can be prevented but only if workers’ protection from injury at work is prioritized and OHS confirmed as fundamental human right. ”
Executive Director of the Society of Occupational Medicine, located in the Great Britain, Nick Pahl said: „Society of Occupational Medicine strongly supports the view that the protection of OHS is the fundamental right at work. We invite the ILO Administrative Body to urgently react and implement the decision taken at the ILO Centenary Conference (session 108), held in 2019, which puts the protection of OHS on the agenda of the ILO Conference which is to take place in 2021.”
ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow said: „Governments and employers are supposed to listen to leading experts. For quite some time workers’ protection from the injury and professional diseases has been undermined. There’s the impression that employers, even some governments, think that in business it is possible to trade in human lives. By providing OHS with the legal status, as it deserves one, historical mistake will be corrected and efforts to control the COVID-19 pandemic strengthened.’’

National Agency for Peaceful Settlement of Labour Disputes marked its 15th anniversary. The event, as well as the opening of the first interactive training for conciliators and arbiters, was attended by the CATUS President, Ljubisav Orbović.
Up to now the Agency has resolved about 20,000 disputes out of which 19,000 are individual, which means that citizens became aware of Agency’s importance and reliability. This assessment is shared by the Minister of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs, Darija Kisić Tepavčević. „Agreement is always possible but goodwill is necessary. The Agency’s goal is to create peaceful atmosphere while resolving disputes and finding the best solution in the interest of both employees and trade union, but also the Republic of Serbia“, Minister explained.
„Through the protection of individual labour rights workers are provided with the possibility to resolve the dispute free of charge, quickly and simply and employers are able to avoid expensive and long-term court procedures. If the Agency is in charge of resolving the dispute, the expenses boil down to a minimum as it is in eveybody’s interest “, she said.
The acting director of the National Agency for the Peaceful Settlement of Labour Disputes, Ivica Lazović thanked the Minister and added that Agency’s priority would be to accomplish better cooperation with the courts and social partners.
The event was also attended by the TUC NEZAVISNOST President, Zoran Stoiljković and the President of the Employers’ Association, Miloš Nenezić.

Extensive powers provided by the Labour Law are used by the employers to ‘write’ annual leave request forms while the shops are closed and thus reduce the already minimum number of days planned for annual leave.
Many workers had the duration of their annual leave halved while employers justify it by saying that these days would be lost anyway as they have to be used no later than June 30.
Radoslav Topalović, President of the Autonomous Trade Union of Workers in Commerce, says that up to now not a single worker’s complaint has been submitted but it doesn’t mean that such situations haven’t happened.
"Not a single worker complained. Labour Law provides employers with extensive powers regarding annual leave while employees neither go to the Labour Inspection nor to the union in order to keep their jobs. By the rule, employer has the right to determine the length of the annual leave, which means that workers have their hands tied", says Topalović.
A worker in a well-known cosmetics chain in Belgrade says that all employees accept employer’s decision without any rejection because they think that they aren’t in the position to protest because they would easily be replaced by the colleagues waiting for a job and end up in the street.
In the Ministry of Labour they explain that according to the Article 75 of the Labour Law employer decides about the period of annual leave after having previously consulted the employee and decided about the work needs: Request is submitted to the employee no later than 15 days before the beginning of the annual leave, i.e. if the annual leave is requested by the employee, employer may deliver the approval immediately before the annual leave is to begin.
However, there is another provision of the Labour Law, according to which during the interruption of work ordered by the authorities or employer due to the lack of OHS – employee has the right to a wage stipulated by the employment contract.

Guaranteed minimum wage
Employer may order the employee to take a paid leave during the interruption of work, i.e. reduction of work load that the employee is not to be blamed for and length of leave goes up to 45 working days. Longer absence from work has to be agreed by the Labour Minister. On that occasion employee has the right to at least 60% of the average salary for the past 12 months and the amount can’t be lower than the legal minimum.

Social and Economic Council of the Republic of Serbia has unanimously supported the Initiative of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia aimed at ratification of the ILO Convention 190 on the elimination of violence and harassment at work.
At the session of the National and Provincial SEC, held in Novi Sad, social partners agreed to second the Initiative, the text of which was explained by the CATUS Secretary Zoran Mihajlovic. As agreed, the Initiative will be sent to the Ministry of Labour.
Having in mind that women represent one of the most vulnerable groups on the labour market, Commissioner for Protection of Equality, Brankica Jankovic also gave her support to the CATUS Initiative and within the 2020 Report on the protection of equality she will provide a general recommendation to ratify the ILO Convention 120 as soon as possible.
Last but not the least, the National Agency for Peaceful Settlement of Labour Disputes welcomed the CATUS Initiative by pointing out that raising the awareness on the prevention and protection from the harassment at work. Furthermore, the Agency said that in 2020 employees initiated more than 500 individual cases due to the harassment at work.

Workers in FCA Serbia were offered to apply to work for a year in a Slovakian factory Trnava where Peugeot 208 and Citroen C3 are produced. Company “Stellantis”, which besides Fiat includes several globally known automobile producers, offered workers from the factory in Kragujevac to acquire work experience in Slovakia.
They were offered the same salary as the workers in Slovakia, but also a bonus upon arrival and departure. At the moment registration is under way and allegedly it is voluntary. The offer stands for the total of 400 workers.
It is unclear what happens to a former giant in the automobile industry - from the announcement of a new model which would be made in the factory in Serbia to the point that our workers are now sent to work in Slovakia.
Does it mean that the production in Serbia is shutting down?
Is Fiat transforming from a giant and promoter of economy in our country into an employment agency?
The question is whether the Government of Serbia, which is the owner of 33% of factory’s shares, knows about this?
Maybe answers to these questions that the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia insists on will be given in the days to come!

Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia joins global campaign for the elimination of violence against women and demands that urgent and decisive steps are taken. We demand from the Government of the Republic of Serbia to urgently initiate the ratification procedure for the ILO Convention on Violence and Harassment in the world of work which was adopted by the International Labour Organization at its 108th conference.
The issue of violence and harassment is more and more frequently found in collective agreements around Europe and Government’s responsibility is to secure a supportive framework for collective bargaining at all levels.
Violence against women, violence against all workers must be stopped! Work freed of violence for all represents the respect of international standards and civilizational achievement. In the 21st century it is impermissible to vex, harass, disturb, perform mobbing on anyone, and least of all women who are most often the victims.
CATUS joins the invitation of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) sent to the European Commission, to stop violence against women, including the ratification of ILO Convention 190, as well as full implementation of EC Convention on preventing and combatting violence against women and domestic violence, which was passed in Istanbul on May 11, 2011, and confirmed by Serbia almost a decade ago.

ILO Convention 190

Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia points out that the draft of the Seasonal Employment Law regulating seasonal and temporary work in certain industries completely abolishes fundamental labour rights stemming from employment, makes the existence of the Labour Law pointless and transforms workers into permanent seasonal, i.e. temporary workers.
In the letter to the Labour Minister, Darija Kisić Tepavčević, CATUS asked for a withdrawal of the draft and a new text to be made by the Ministry staff, without any hurry, in cooperation with representative trade unions and Serbian Employers’ Association so that we could have the law which would solve the issue of the employment of seasonal workers the right way and provide them with protection, just remuneration and adequate working conditions.

The eleventh meeting of the EU-Serbia Civil Society Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) took place in February. Current situation of the relationship between EU and Serbia and negotiations in the EU accession process, EC Progress Report 2020, situation in civil society and rule of law were discussed at the meeting. JCC adopted Joint Declaration with 17 votes for and one abstention vote.
Regarding background information, in line with the Stabilization and Association Agreement JCC was established between EU and Serbia. This body consisting of 18 members (9 representatives of the European Economic and Social Council and 9 representatives of Serbian Civil Society) enables civil society organisations to follow the accession process and give their opinion and recommendations to the Government of Serbia and EU institutions. It also includes the representatives of trade unions, employers’ organisations and NGOs.
The importance of civil society in the accession process, necessary reforms oriented towards democratization and transparency with long-term results, election conditions that need to be seriously dealt with, were pointed out at the meeting. EU offered support to Serbia in overcoming the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and measures that were taken produced good results. Also, considerable sums were allocated (70 million euros) for the vaccination and provisions of vaccines even though there are delays in the delivery in the EU region, as well.
The application of new methodology in the accession process, which was accepted by Serbia, is important in the sense of speeding up the process and greater interaction with the clusters. By the new methodology, the measure of success and progress in accession will no longer be the opening of SAA chapters, but the interaction in the clusters of economic and structural reforms and commitment to the accession process, including the creation of road map throughout the process. The appeal goes to European institutions and member states to continue offering support to the implementation of EU accession policy measures. Besides, Portugal, currently presiding the Council, is invited, the same as Slovenia which will take over the presidency, to continue maintaining a full swing in the accession process and to host as soon as possible the inter-government conference with Serbia, where future steps will be considered in line with the accession methodology. The importance of the debate at the Assembly on the EU Report is emphasized, as well as the establishment of such practice in the following period.
JCC members pointed out to good economic results, as well as the efforts to realize the idea of establishing better business environment through regional cooperation and promotion of the region as a unique investment destination. The activities were oriented towards providing support for initiatives within the regional economic area on the Western Balkans.
Regarding the situation of civil society, the need for more transparency and genuine dialogue was underlined. Having in mind that the safety of journalists is at risk, the new strategy on the media was welcomed, as well as the establishment of a work group for the protection of journalists, but also its real and full implementation.
According to the written agreement, safety, as well as decent and timely payment of salary and adequate solution of labour market issues such as the regulation of telework and informal economy, the principle of decent work is extremely important. State bodies of the Republic of Serbia are required to take necessary measures and actively include social partners in the provision of decent working conditions in a healthy business environment without corruption and with a higher employment protection level so that the biggest challenges on the Serbian labour market could be overcome, among which the biggest challenges are the brain drain and migration of labour force. Concern caused by the vision of the National Employment Strategy 2021-2026, which clearly represents a step back because the allocated resources for active employment measures are set at only 0.2% of GDP in 2026, was expressed.
Dialogue between civil society and institutions needs to be genuine and proposals/recommendations containing criticism need to be taken into consideration. Early inclusion of social partners in the creation of law by the line ministries is necessary because it increases the quality of the debate at the Social and Economic Council (SEC). It is important that draft laws which are discussed at the SEC are delivered to the National Assembly together with recommendations and opinion of the SEC. The importance of time that must not be wasted when it comes to reforms was pointed out and it was added that it required political will from both sides – both decision makers and Government of Serbia, and EU institutions.
DECLARATION

There are more women than men working in professions that are low paid – health, social protection and now we realize how important these sectors actually are and I hope that these professions will be much more respected’, estimated the Commissioner for Protection of Equality, Brankica Janković. In her interview for the National News Janković explained that in her job she regularly encountered the complaints of young women who could not find work precisely because they were young and employers’ first thought was that the woman would soon go on her maternity leave.
She also said that a woman looking for a job was not to be asked if she was married, if she was planning to have children. ‘This bears no importance for the job. To me it is nonsensical that you ask a woman aged 25 or 26 if she was planning to have a family and a baby. Many employers learned they must not ask that question’, Janković has pointed out.
Concerning employment, Janković said that there was a huge generation gap, especially in the category of women older than 55, where only 40% of them were employed. 'It is already a lot more difficult to find work if you are older than 45 because some employers consider you to be an old worker, not the one who is precisely in the prime of life when he/she could do their best, and this is because of the prejudice that you would be less efficient, not ready to learn about new technologies, which is a phenomenon predominantly affecting women, Janković has added.
‘We conducted a couple of cases where discrimination was clearly detected because women older than 45 were transferred to lower paying positions, for example this is the case of nurses because general opinion is that they would not be able to learn to keep records in the new way. It is all a prejudice. Both men and women want to learn’, Janković has emphasized.

In Serbia work from home is a forced option that emerged during the pandemic. However, as long as it is justified as a protection from infection, more and more employees think that employers expect them to be available all the time, says the President of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia Ljubisav Orbović for biznis.rs.
He explains he is worried about whether work from home would become a new normal after the pandemic is over, adding it has already been proven that many people can do their job from their homes.
„Some employers have already estimated that it doesn’t pay off to pay for the lease of offices, their maintenance and this is all right for some jobs. Nevertheless, the fact that most employees do not have the possibility to separate business space in their apartments represents the problem, states Orbović.
„There is also a danger that employers won’t be willing to keep a part of jobs any longer, but will rather ask their employees to establish their own businesses so that they could cooperate in the future. This could cause huge problems for some employees because there are people who do their job well but lack entreprising spirit or are not capable of starting their own business. On the other hand, those having these skills will probably use this opportunity in the near future, concluded Orbović.
According to the latest estimates, a half of active working population in the world will continue working from home in 2021.

The validity of the branch collective agreement (BCA) covering road maintenance industry workers has been extended for another three years. The agreement was signed in the premises of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia.
On the behalf of the Autonomous Trade Union of Road Maintenance Industry Workers and representative Association of Employers in Road Maintenance Industry ‘PUTAR’, Duško Bošković and Zvonimir Marković signed the agreement.
This way the validity of the BCA, which was supposed to expire in March this year, was prolonged till March 2024.
This is an important agreement in the real sector covering 10,000 employees in the road maintenance industry of Serbia.

As it had been earlier announced, 2021-2026 Employment Strategy was supposed to be adopted till the end of January and a public debate was organised to discuss this strategic document. In the meantime positions of ministries were gathered and now the Social and Economic Council is expected to make a final decision, after which the draft will be presented for adoption.
The main goal is to enable continuous employment growth and special attention will be paid to vulnerable groups: youth, women, people with disabilities. CATUS representatives took part in the creation of this document but it is to be seen whether trade union’s proposals will be adopted.
“We demanded that a way to motivate unemployed people to register more often at the National Employment Agency had to be found, all registers on employed and unemployed people in the country bound together, National Employment Agency needed to have insight into the resources collected based on contributions and their use and finally employer’s payment of contributions in case of unemployment had to be reinstated ”, says Sanja Paunović, from CATUS, for Politika.
In the new Strategy Draft it is mentioned that in 2019 a ratio of the long-term unemployed out of the overall number of the unemployed, as recorded by the National Employment Agency, was 66% and the rate of long-term unemployment was 6.1%. At the end of 2026 it is expected that through the implementation of this Strategy the ratio of the long-term unemployed will be 61% and the rate of long-term unemployment will amount to 1,9%, which representS a 5% reduction, more precisely 4.2% compared to the previous period. As envisaged by the Active Employment Policy, in 2026 the plan is to allocate 0.2% of GDP resources, compared to 2019 when the portion amounted to 0.08% of GDP resources.
As the public debate is soon coming to an end, Work Group of the National Convention on the EU explained that the draft of the National Employment Strategy 2021-2026 represented a step back compared to the previous strategy where the targeted value equalled 0.5% of the GDP. Such small sums will keep Serbia at Europe’s back. In 2018 Active Employment Policy Measures included 5.1% out of 100 unemployed people while Romania had the smallest coverage (5.3%) and Belgium the largest (76.5%). The coverage in 2019 fell to 4.7% - says the announcement.
Even though EC Serbia progress Report for 2020 says that there is ‘a lack of financial and institutional resources for employment and social policy’ and strategy goals include labour market inclusion, decent work and high quality jobs, proposed measures do not lead to the realization of those goals.
“While previous strategy defined goals that aimed to improve the status of 10 vulnerable groups, among which there are Roma people, returners by the re-admission agreement, rural population, internal migrants and refugees and redundant workers, new strategy draft proposes measures for only four groups: social benefit users, women, youth and people with disabilities”, reminds Work Group of the National Convention on the EU.

Data gathered by the Trade Union of Doctors and Pharamcists of Serbia (SLFS) confirm that up to now 73 doctors have died and the list of deaths keeps growing.
Infectologists, Lejla Ćeranić, who at one point during the most severe epidemiologic wave was the only specialist of infectology in Novi Pazar hospital, and Jovana Milić, associate-scientist at the Unversity of Modena and Reggio Emilia, say that there are many reasons which contributed to a huge number of deceased people - from fatigue to the lack of routine tests for health workers.
– The number of deceased doctors in Serbia is worrying, especially if compared to the region where in Slovenia not a single doctor died and in Croatia one death was recorded. This number is also worrying compared to the overall number of inhabitants in Serbia and the number of infected people which was officially published. In Italy by the middle of September 174 doctors died out of 17,000 infected. We don’t have data for Serbia on how many doctors had been infected by corona virus since the beginning of the epidemic. Just the same as we don’t have the data on the infection and death of other health workers and assistants working in health institutions, explains Jovana Milić.
At the beginning of the epidemic the news on deceased doctors arrived periodically while in the last wave not a single day passed without news that another doctor who was infected by corona virus passed away.
Infectologist Lejla Ćeranić comments that out of her own experience she knows that if hospitals are full, doctors can barely protect themselves from infection.
– During the worst situation in Novi Pazar 100 health workers were infected. We didn’t have a sufficient number of doctors nor medical workers. In the red zone I had full protective equipment but could I take care of how I’m taking it off and putting it on, when the most important thing was to examine all those patients who were incessantly arriving? Nobody could even respect the rule of exiting the red zone after four hours. I spent ten, eleven hours wearing a protective suit. The moment when more doctors were included, we were relieved. Then we realized that it was all about good organization, says Ćeranić.
Jovana Milić also warns that being overburdened puts doctors at risk of getting ill.
– I know that one doctor takes care of 40 patients taking oxygen. Just knowing that you are responsible for 40 lives puts a huge pressure on you. And to make right decisions for yourself and others, it is necessary to be rested, says Milić.
She adds that in Italy most medical workers got infected, not in red but in green zones, getting into contact with the infected whether in the very health institution or out of their work place. Among other things, the measures taken in this country entail regular PCR testing.
– Non-covid patients going into hospitals in Italy need to have a negative PCR test. I know that for some time in Serbia the condition for getting into hospital was to have a negative serologic test and afterwards a negative antigen test. These tests are cheaper than PCR test but are also less reliable, so it could happen that an infected person is not detected if a testee is someone not having symptoms. Therefore, it is possible that some doctors could get infected that way. Finally, I don’t know how often medical workers are routinely tested in Serbia. In Italy doctors take PCR tests every two weeks, sometimes more often, so that those infected could be detected on time, says Milić.
Besides the names of deceased doctors which were published by the Trade Union of Doctors and Pharmacists of Serbia and Serbian Medical Chamber, up to now not a single serious research has been done to give answers to the question whether and why the doctors were additionally at risk during the pandemic. Lejla Ćeranić stresses that these questions demand an answer which is not hard to get if everybody does their job.
– It is necessary to compare deaths of doctors to the deaths of general population in order to see if there is a significant difference. We have to know what happened – is our health system in such a catastrophic state? But this is the job for the specialists who don’t work with patients, namely for statisticians, epidemiologists, social medicine specialists, concludes Ćeranić.

Around the world corona virus pandemic had the biggest effect on tourism and it seems that catering and event organizing industry experienced the most severe impact. Results that Serbian tourism achieved in the record-breaking 2019 were promising that the following year tourism in Serbia would have its most successful season.
Even though there were attempts to make up for the lack of foreign tourists by Serbs who decided to spend their summer holiday in Serbia, corona virus epidemic made tourism yearn for sector aid and made tourist industry consider new security measures for passengers, as well as change its way of functioning.
According to the first findings presented in spring, six-month damage in tourism is estimated to around 300 million euros. Considering the data of the line ministry, at the end of 2020 the overall damage in tourism was estimated to a billion euros but it is difficult to make a precise estimate because the losses in entertainment industry and catering were immeasurable. Data of Serbian Business Registers Agency show that in April 2020 there were nearly 8,000 legal entities operating in tourism/catering and around 26,000 entrepreneurs, and statistically speaking, the number of expected events in 2020 was around 17,000. They were either cancelled or moved to 2021. The number of employees in the whole ‘event’ industry was about 10,000 working full-time and 50,000 part-time, i.e. seasonally, and as estimated by the group of event organisers, where only ‘EXIT’ festival annually makes 20 million euros, generated tourist and business profit was about 250 million euros in the entertainment tourism.
Sector of organizing events, manifestations, congresses, weddings, catering services, decoration agencies, confectioners, wedding dress shops, together with the sector of night clubs and bars came to a halt, meaning that there was a ban on gathering and working and the ban is still in force, which leads to enormous losses not only in Serbia but worldwide.
Besides catering and entertainment, other tourism segments, , such as air traffic, nautical tourism, lodging services including hostels, mountain homes, categorized flats in cities, hotels as the biggest foreign and domestic investments in Serbia, tourist agencies, guides, producers of souvenirs, transport services (rent-a-car agencies) work with 5% of their capacities and have been sustaining 100% loss for months…

New state aid package for the economy and citizens which is supposed to alleviate the consequences caused by the pandemic will also include the unemployed, announced by ‘Večernje novosti’.
As we have found out, this vulnerable category of citizens will receive a certain sum while the Government of the Republic of Serbia is intensively working in order to define proposals and decide on the amount which will be allocated for this purpose.
Regarding support for citizens, which last year amounted to 100 euros for all those who agreed to it, Finance Minister Siniša Mali said they would consider it if it proved to be necessary.
Certain experts deny this measure because they think money should be spent purposefully to help the most vulnerable categories of population.
By the middle of February new aid package will be defined. According to the announcements, support for the economy at large is being considered. This means that 1,05 million employees could get a half of minimum wage two or three times, in other words 32,000 – 48,000 dinars.
As it was announced, throughout the year new package of measures will also include the support for the oldest citizens. Economy will continue to be credited through the guarantee scheme.

We got the news from Bor that on the occasion of signing the new collective agreement the management of the company „Zijin copper Bor” plans to cancel numerous extra payments and thus considerably decrease workers’ monthly salaries. The company’s “offer” was assessed by the unions as “indecent and unacceptable”. Majority owner of the Bor company is the Chinese corporation „Zijin“, with 63% of ownership, while the remaining 37% are owned by the Serbian Government.
Management suggests that the annual leave should be 28 working days at most, the paid leave up to five days and paid leave for voluntary blood donors two, instead of five working days. Basic salary should no longer be based on the coefficients of the work place, whose value was determined according to the type and level of education, job complexity, responsibility and working conditions, nor the agreed per hour wage would follow the increase of the national per hour minimum wage, as it was suggested by a decision of the Social and Economic Council of Serbia.
Extra payments would be reduced to the legal minimum, even when one has to work on state and religious holiday or Miners’ Day (from 150% down to 110%) and from 35% down to 26%, when working at night or overtime. It has also been suggested that the payment for the years of service should be reduced by 63.77% and the severance pay to two, instead of three average wages. Jubilee prizes would disappear and the gift for a newborn, that once equalled three average net salaries, would be turned into a simple 60,000 dinars (508 euros) solidarity aid. Employees’ participation in the company’s profit would also be abolished.
Workers are worried about the possible changes and ready to support the unions in the fight for their rights, which the investors, regardless of the country of their origin, are always ready to limit or even cancel.

On the occasion of the protest of the Association of Workers on Internet, scheduled on January 16, 2021, the CATUS issued the following statement:
“We extend our support to all workers who have been courageously acquiring their knowledge and work experience in the tough global competition over Internet. Being exposed to everyday competition from around the world, they have been supporting their family members and themselves, while contributing to the resources and reputation of the Republic of Serbia.
Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia has always been advocating for the realization of all workers’ rights. At the time of industrial revolution 4.0, especially now during the corona virus pandemic when digitalization of business and work from home are omnipresent, we have to follow current trends and contributе to social dialogue in non-standard forms of work. For the delayed charge of up to 80% of Internet workers’ overall income earned for the past five years, cannot exclusively be blamed the workers, who earned their income at the time of high general unemployment and restricted employment in the public sector. We think it is not fair to impose such humiliating taxes to those who found a way to secure their existence without leaving the country.
Therefore, we again demand from the Prime Minister of the Government of the Republic of Serbia to determine the taxes for these workers justly and determine the way to protect their labour and social rights through social dialogue and participation of the Association of Workers on Internet.
A good news is that Prime Minister Brnabic accepted to start negotiations with representatives of the Association soon.

The amount, equalling to 30,367 dinars (257 euros) was paid yesterday to all employees whose companies (12,037 of them) had been entitled to such assistance. The total number of beneficiaries, working mostly in tourist and rent-a-car agencies, restaurants and hotels, is 72,500 and they will be paid through special bank accounts. The action is to be continued until February 15 next year, after which the accounts will be closed.
All working in the above mentioned sectors will have the right to get a state-sponsored minimum wage, in case their company applied for the assistance and saw its claim approved. The sums will be paid by the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Communications.
The companies may lose the right to assistance for two reasons: if they dismiss more than 10% of staff between December 5 this year and January 31 next year (the temporary workers not entering the calculation), or use the acquired means for purposes other than the payment of wages. The fulfillment of obligations, stipulated by the agreement signed with the Government, will be monitored by the Ministry of Finance.
This is the sixth state-paid minimum wage since the beginning of the pandemic. Although the Government is often widely criticized for its neoliberal practices, this move has been approved by the public as one contributing to the economic recovery and satisfaction of workers’ basic needs. One of its results is that only a thousand workers lost their jobs, thus far.
Following the example of many EU states, Serbian government has spent 700 billion dinars (6 billion euros) combatting the effects of the COVID-19 crisis, which in a country such as ours is a considerable sum. Praising their policy, they insist on the fact that according to the IMF estimates Serbia will be the country with most rapid recovery in Europe. Still, it is not quite clear what will be the effect of government measures on public debt and how the deficit is to be covered.

At the invitation of the CATUS, the Council Vice-President, Duško Vuković, and the President of the Association of Workers on Internet, Miran Pogačar, discussed the acute problems of workers on the Internet and considered the ways to expand their cooperation.
They agreed on joint activities aimed at reaching an agreement on taxation with the representatives of executive power, which would reflect the complexity of the current sanitary and economic crisis, as well as workers' financial capacities.
This was the first move of our Confederation directed towards this category of employees, whose number is constantly growing and rights being neglected.

This December employees in the public sector will get a pay rise, which means that basic amount for the calculation and payment of their January pay in 2021 will be increased by 10% and thus fixed, it will be higher by 5% starting from December 2020 pay. This will cover the employees in health institutions, military health system, health protection employees in social security institutions, doctors working in prisons, health carers in social security institutions and health workers in Serbian Institute of Sport and Sports Medicine.
In 2021 other public sector employees, i.e. those working in the mandatory social security institutions, will see their pays increased by 3.5%, starting from their December 2020 pay and the basic amount for the calculation and payment of the pay will be increased by 5%, starting from March 2021 pay.

Workers who left the entreprises taking a social program ‘two years to pension’ and ‘five years to pension’ will no longer pay penalty points for their acquired pension, but in the future the pension will be paid in full amount.
This was agreed at the meeting with the Minister of Labour, Veteran and Social Affairs, Darija Kisić Tepavčević, President and Seceretary of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia, Ljubisav Orbović and Zoran Mihajlović.
We are talking about 6,300 workers who left the entreprises throughout the period 2010 – 2014 due to being redundant and their pensions were unfairly reduced. These are former workers of Zastava factories in Kragujevac, „14. October“ in Kruševac, „Goša“ in Smederevska Palanka, „Sloboda“ in Čačak and others.
New Labour Minister showed understanding and willingness to solve this problem, to which our trade union has been constantly pointing out for the past five years.

Having in mind that factories, entreprises and institutions around Serbia are increasingly becoming the focus of corona virus epidemic, Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia is taking the initiative to include regional and local representatives of social partners in the crisis headquarters responsible for the elimination of COVID-19.
This decision was taken at the Presidency session, held on November 27, where the main topic on the agenda was working in corona conditions.
Presidency members presented information about the situation in their branch, i.e. territory, about the number of infected people, the level to which health and safety measures are applied and respected at the work place. General impression is that workers are not taken care of, there is a big number of those infected and trade union needs to insist that measures protecting workers be respected and possibly pass a concrete rulebook on corona.

The annex allowing a 100% compensation of the salary in case of COVID-19 infection was signed by the representatives of trade unions of culture and the authorities.
This extremely important addition to the branch collective agreement provides the employees with 100% salary, which is calculated on the basis of the average salary they earned in 12 months preceding the month when a temporary impediment to work due to the confirmed COVID-19 infection occurred or the isolation/self-isolation measures, ordered in relation to the disease, were taken. All of this in case the disease has appeared as a consequence of a direct exposure to risks related to the performance of work tasks, i.e. to the fulfillment of official duties or to contacts with people whose infection has been confirmed (or who were ordered to be isolated or self-isolated).
The annex to the agreement was signed by the Vice-President of the Government of Serbia and Minister of Culture and Information, Maja Gojković, and the representatives of the Trade Union of Culture of Serbia (member of the CATUS), Sectoral Trade Union of Culture, Art and Media „Nezavisnost“ and sectoral trade union of the Confederation of Free Trade Unions.
The Minister pointed to the fact that the annex secured a full monthly salary to the employees who got infected, which in current circumstances is quite important. „This way we wanted to show clearly that, while making citizens enjoy cultural contents despite the pandemic, we are ready to take our responsibilities and show how much we appreciate the employees’ work and efforts, too”, she said.
Gojković also talked to trade union representatives about the measures taken by the Crisis Headquarters, while the unionists, for their part, supported her idea to have a representative of the Ministry of Culture and Information in the Crisis Headquarters, enabling him/her to interpret the measures taken to those working in different sectors of the artistic creation.

The number of dismissed workers has risen to 19, as the company tries to justify its move by the effects of the corona virus pandemic. The unions reacted immediately insisting on the obligation of employers not to dismiss anyone after receiving financial assistance from the government. They reject the employers’ explanation saying they employed more workers than it was stipulated by an agreement signed with the government and point out to 7,500 euros the government granted to company for each new work place.
The worst is that this has not been the end of the dismissal chain: some facts which leaked to media point to other 30 dismissals in the future, mostly in the sector specialized for the production of electric bulbs for export. This decrease of export has exactly been the reason justifying the dismissals. “Following the agreement, in 2020 we employed more people than it had been stipulated. COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected our production, reduced demand for our products and forced us to dismiss some of our colleagues. Each of them, however, got a severance pay”, said the representative of the company.
On the contrary, the unions insist that company must give back to the budget the money it got from the government. “They got it only after having signed not to dismiss workers”, they say and add: “One should also not forget that they used different kinds of pressure to make employees “voluntarily resign” and paid them a severance pay of only 1300 euros per person”.
“Zumtobel” started its production in Nis in September 2018, after signing an agreement wherein they guaranteed the employment of 1,100 workers in the next three to five years.

Struggle against the violation of workers’ rights and the exploitation can never be totally obfuscated by the nationalist rhetoric. Confronted with rapacious local politicians plundering for years the ex-workers property in Serbian southern Autonomous Province, the trade union of Kosovo postal and Telecom employees (PTK) organized an impressive rally in front of the provincial government and asked for the unblocking of the company’s bank account and payment of all outstanding wages. The unionist said they expected a government promise on safeguarding the company from the bankruptcy. Employees carried banners with inscriptions such as “We are not poor, we got robbed!”, “Mr. Public Prosecutor, do your job!” and “Our children need bread!”
One of the protesters, Fuad Hadxiu, said he came to the rally because he was not paid for the last two months. “I am deprived of my work and it’s our management and politicians’ mistake. They let the company go bankrupt and left us without salaries. At the same time we all have credits to be disbursed, which is impossible if we have no money left”.
President of the PTK trade union, Lamih Balaj, was resolute: workers would not go away until they saw their claims accepted - in spite of the anti-COVID-19 regulation forbidding mass gatherings. “Those who signed contracts that pushed our company into bankruptcy were appointed to their posts by the ruling party, which now has obligation to unblock our account and assume their responsibility. They should be ashamed of cashing their per diems without being ready to adopt a law on post and telecom, as they did in case of other public enterprises”. He concluded by saying that workers are “sick of politicians who steal and expect workers to pay for it”.
There are 2,300 employees in Telecom and 1,100 in the Post whose existence depends on the fate of these companies. In order to understand the extent of the possible catastrophe one should also take into account their family members and all the others whose companies survive by cooperating with the PTK.
The rally was not approved by the police but they did not intervene, as workers kept the prescribed distance. At the end of the today’s round, President Balaj confirmed the employees’ intention to go on with the protest until the full realization of their claims.

On November 10, the management informed the staff about a new program of voluntary retirement, promising a redundancy package better than one prescribed by the Labour Law. At the same time, they announced a decrease in salaries from December to March next year, the exact amount of which would vary depending on the position held in the company. Although the news is still to be officially confirmed, the calculations hinting at 300 redundancies have already been made.
The company justifies its behavior by the fact that in spite of their past effort to reduce the expenses and thus mitigate the effects of the corona pandemic, the costs grew so high that they have become unbearable. Still, the dismissals are happening at the time when 150 million euros from Serbian budget are being conceded to Air Serbia to cover the cost of credits that are to be disbursed this year and compensate for the losses that company could suffer next year due to the never-heard-of-before crisis in the air transport. Although it’s not known whether this move was autonomous or caused by the pressures coming from the government, the experts agree that it was done too late. Other companies did it long ago. The Emirates, for example, dismissed 50% of the staff without reducing the salaries, while some other companies reduced all salaries by 40% to 60% without dismissing anyone. The exception is the Wizz air, which is planning to substitute a number of other companies on the European market.
It was clear from the beginning that the pandemic would not stop quickly and could make the crisis last until 2022 or even 2024, say the experts. This year the general turn-over suffered the 40% to 50% decrease and the winter will be a full disaster. The companies calculated that it would not pay off to keep the redundancies for two or three more years and decided to dismiss them. They know very well that after the crisis is over they will find them again on the labour market and pay them less than now because of their fragile position.
Our economist Milan Kovacevic does not share that conviction. He thinks that many of the employees who opted for the voluntary retirement scheme will be badly needed by the companies in the post-corona times and might ask to be paid more than before. While criticizing the lack of transparency concerning the expenses not related to the labour cost, he is also skeptical about the capability of public enterprises to analyse and foresee the future development and needs.

The protest letter dealing with the retroactive payment of taxes and a regulation of the freelancers’ status, was handed over to the Ministry of Finance. The employees’ association is rather new – it was established only last month, after the Tax Department had announced that all those who had been paid by foreign clients for their work via Internet, would have to pay taxes and contributions to social funds for last five years! However, the freelancers claim that the Law on citizens’ income of 2001, which prescribes the taxation of all income coming from abroad, was completely unknown to the majority of them. Many say they were never informed about how it worked, while those who knew of its existence claim they had never been instructed how to duly effect payments. The average amount to be paid by the majority of freelencers is around 10,000 euros, which is a considerable sum, according to Serbian criteria.
The government decision on demanding the payment of taxes on all income coming from abroad was meant for the whole body of tax-payers, but it affects mostly those working in the IT sector. That is why they organized themselves, elected a negotiation team and started gathering votes for a petition named “Do not destroy the IT sector!” It says:
“Our sector kept on growing even during the COVID-19 pandemic and is one with best perspectives. It offers great possibilities to Serbian economy and could speed up its recovery. Unfortunately, the government has been short-sighted and insists on out-of-date legislation which could cost some of us even 80% of our income and make us work informally, abandon Serbia or try to register our companies in one of the tax havens. Contrary to other countries’ practices, where governments ease tax burden in the sector and even subsidize its businesses - our politicians put unnecessary obstacles in our way, try to rob us and send us to the exile - at the same time when they subsidize companies employing cheap labour force. Thus, in the era of digital revolution they offer people manual and unqualified jobs.
Let the free and independent people add new value and help the recovery of the country, making it a place where the citizens will not be a burden, but an engine moving the whole society ahead.”

Although the number of employees working from home in Serbia has been constantly growing and is currently three times higher than at the outbreak of the pandemic, the telework has not been regulated so far. In a recent interview, the well-known expert in labour relations, employed in the Institute of Social Sciences, Nada Novakovic, spoke about difficulties that the lack of regulation implied and the possibility of amending the existing Labour Law.
According to the last data, there were 134,000 employees working at home in 2019. However, in April 2020 their number has gone up to more than 400,000, which is round 15% of the working population. “In Serbia, the work online usually implies the absence of decent work and rights to privacy, health insurance and free movement. The working time has not been regulated, which facilitates the exploitation of employees who should be enabled to negotiate their working conditions and have prescribed number of rest hours”, said Novakovic, renowned for her bitter criticism of capitalist practices.
She insists that “the amendments to the Labour Law should permit the precise definition of elements such as working time, rules of behavior, ways of monitoring the employees and payment for the increased risk” and gives examples of Switzerland, where the employers cover 20% of the employees’ house rent and France, where they lost the right to contact them out of working hours.
She also used the interview to criticize the government for not taking enough care of single moms, workers with low wages and strengthening of Labour Inspection.

Not long ago we celebrated the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, with 130 million persons added to the existing list of 690 million already suffering from hunger. At the same time, the risk of poverty rate (or social exclusion rate) in Serbia in 2019 reached the appalling 23.2%, However, some optimism was brought by the fact that it was 1.1% less than a year before, according to the Republic Statistical Office.
In Serbia, a household risking poverty is considered to be the one living on 162 euros per month (if it is a single-member one), 291 euros (if it is composed of two adults and a child up to 14 years of age) or 340 euros (if it includes two adults and two children up to 14 years of age).
Exposed to poverty were mostly the youngsters up to 18 years of age (28.9%) and those between 18 and 24 (25.6%). Astonishingly, the rate was lowest among the elders above 65 – 21.1%.
Taking into consideration the categories of households, the mostly affected were those with two adults and three or more unemployed children (51.9%) and those with one adult only and one or more unemployed kids (41.6%).
There is also a big difference among various social groups. At risk are mostly the unemployed (47.5%), the self-employed (25.9%) and the pensioners (17.2%), while the employers (6.5%) are quite safe.
The picture becomes more realistic when one adds to these categories those 350.000 workers whose families live with the minimum wage and those 1.6 million (two thirds of our work force) who get wages which are under the average one. One has always to bear in mind that even the average wage in Serbia is far from being sufficient to secure decent life, especially if there are members of the family who are unemployed, which is often the case.
Government plans the introduction of the “social card” where all data concerning income and property should be gathered. That would enable the poor to be helped in a more transparent and just manner. The problem is that such idea has been cherished by all Serbian governments for 50 years and has never been realised.
The government’s one-way economic policy which tries to attract the foreign capital by promises of cheap labour and poor workers’ rights - fully inspired by the neoliberal model – is obviously not giving results.

Mario Reljanovic, our famous expert in labour relations, has recently commented on the fact that, according to a Government inquiry, the number of unemployed decreased by 87,400 in the second semester of this year. It’s true, he says, that certain number of doctors and nurses were employed during the Covid-19 crisis, but it’s also a fact that many unemployed who lost their job were not registered in the Central Register, due to the informal nature of their work. “Judging by some available facts, the number of those who do not work might be at the level of 47%”, he adds.
Reljanovic is skeptical about the methodology used for “counting” the unemployed, accusing it of relying too much on the “subjective feeling of the interviewees. If you ask them whether they had some work last week and were paid in cash or in kind, they might respond positively, which in many cases is absurd”, he says. (According to a Serbian joke, by using this criterion one could get registered as an employed for trimming neighbour’s hedge two hours a month and getting as a reward two bottles of beer.) Here all depends on the interviewees’ subjective feeling of being employed, and it’s wrong because it makes the real number of unemployed differ a lot from the number of those who are officially registered at the National Employment Agency. The fact that all those working in the informal sector, often intermittently and without a salary enabling them to survive are also considered employed, certainly doesn’t help determine the number of unemployed in Serbia precisely.
The official unemployment rate is currently only 7.3%, but if we go on using the aforementioned methodology it could easily drop down to 1%, warns Reljanovic, pointing out the possibility of the statistics being misused. “The number of unemployed is calculated taking into consideration the number of those registered by the National Employment Agency. They are round 500,000, but that fact is not realistic as many of those looking for job have not been registered there. There are also persons, who although being registered, were late in renewing their registration or missed the interview with the social adviser, and as such were eliminated from the list of the unemployed. Many of those who lose their jobs - aware of the fact that they will not get any benefit there - do not even go to the Agency”, concludes the expert.
It ought to be said that the demographic factor and the migrations are considerably contributing to the fall of the number of unemployed, too. The opening of the EU borders in the future might additionally increase the flood of educated people heading west, who were 60,000 last year.

The majority of them (one third) work in the private sector, which was badly affected by the pandemic. On the other hand, only 11% of them were granted an increase, reads the resume of an inquiry conducted by the CATUS in six ex-YU countries - a fact highly predictable in a region with poor social dialogue and everlasting employers’ hegemony.
The youngsters mostly complained of the lack of necessary equipment, undefined working time, less opportunity for normal private and family life, difficulties in communication with colleagues and clients, as well as increase of both unrefunded expense and anxiety related to work.
Unlike Slovenia and Croatia, who registered a considerable number of dismissals, the number of employees in Serbia during the crisis remained more or less the same. However, the average working hours decreased by five hours i.e. from the usual 37.6 it went down to 32.7, while the percentage of those who worked less than 40 hours per week rose from 19.3 to 45.5%!

Wages in Serbia could be higher if the employers were ready to share a part of their profit with the employees, said Orbovic on the occasion of the World Day of Decent Work celebration in Belgrade.
Part of his analysis was dedicated to the rhythm of growth of workers’ and employers’ income showing a highly disturbing trend. Namely, in last five years the wages have increased by 22% and the profits by 285%! Even in 2016, the year with rather meager economic results, the same ratio remained, as the salaries had grown by only 1.09% and profits by 99.52%.
The slow but constant growth of Serbian GDP shows that our workers, who are well trained and do their job well, considerably contribute to their employers’ profits. Therefore, there is no reason why they should not get a part of the money that goes to employers’ pockets. Especially if we have in mind that in times of crises most of them faithfully share the companies’ fate and are ready to work for a minimum wage. However, when the times get better, the companies start working and their owners acquiring high profits, the workers are usually forgotten and their wages remain much the same.
While in the EU the standard of living is rated by the value of the consumer basket, in Serbia, besides the “normal” basket we also have the so called “minimum” one, whose content is hardly enough for one’s survival. Still, our minimum wage does not reach even that poor basket, the former being 20% less than the latter”, said Orbovic.
He also mentioned the fact that in spite of the tripartite Program of Decent Work, adopted last year through the mediation of the ILO, Serbian employees are still far from enjoying its effects. “I hope, however, that in the years to come their salaries will enable them to live decently. Until then, the CATUS will keep on fighting for the realization of that objective and the respect of labour rights”, concluded Orbovic.

The absence of social dialogue might lead to a strike at Belgrade airport, said the trade union representatives. A few days ago the company management informed workers that those whose work contracts expire at the end of October will lose their jobs. The decision, reasoned by a “decline in business activity”, was followed by a social program intended for those willing to resign voluntarily. The reaction of trade unions was immediate: in the announcement that followed quickly thereafter they said they could not acquiesce in the fact that their colleagues might become part of the army of unemployed and poor.
Those to be dismissed are the employees working in supply and security services, among them the ones controlling the luggage and taking care of the airplanes. The management arguments were met with the utmost suspicion, as the unions are kept far from reliable documents related to business and are therefore not able to draw conclusions on company finance. Their assertions are categorical: “We never saw the agreement on concessions signed by the VINCI Airports and Serbian government. In spite of the Prime Minister’s multiple promises to make it published, it hasn’t appeared in public, so far. Whenever we try to do something for workers, our partners usually quote the mysterious document”.
The misunderstandings are, however, present for a long time. For example, forty female employees were dismissed immediately after ending the maternity leave, although they were perfectly fit for work. In the future, the situation might get complicated additionally as the staff will have to clean toilettes and the rest of the airport building themselves. “They promised to provide us with buckets and squeegees at their own expense”, complain the indignant workers.
The unions are generally concerned for workers’ fate in post-corona times. After analyzing the current trends, several independent Serbian institutes already reported that within a few months a big number of redundancies are to be expected – round 200,000. These data clash with those communicated by the government, according to which the consequences of the pandemic should not affect us too much. The truth must lie somewhere in between, still it’s a fact that the cessation of the government aid to companies and workers will leave many of them in a serious trouble. It’s not hard to guess that victims will mostly be among those who worked with short-term contracts and in informal economy, people who will literally have to strive to make ends meet.

In an announcement of the Autonomous Trade Union in “Zastava Arms” (affiliated to the CATUS) it is said that workers condemned the decisions related to the dismissal of managers in the production (a director and two other managers) and were ready to prevent further harassment of employees and trade union members. Later on, the decision on dismissal was revoked, but the management is still determined to dismiss the leading production manager – who, as a member of the Trade Union Assembly is protected by the collective agreement - and banish him to another factory unit, where he would be unable to do his trade union work. It’s a man who for 30 years has been performing difficult and responsible work on the shop floor where the job is done in extremely complicated and risky conditions.
Recently, two other executive directors in production have been dismissed – engineers with a long term experience, but also the lady who is the manager for galvanization and her colleague responsible for transport. Previously, marketing and sales directors were the targets too, as well as a big number of low ranked managers.
In the Autonomous Trade Union they think that the attacks on their affiliates made by the President of the Supervisory Board, who ‘completely privatized his public function’, started intensifying after the downfall of his candidate, (who is affiliated to the Industry Trade Unions) at the elections for the Representative of social capital. In the Autonomous Trade Union they estimate that constant change of leadership has been destroying factory system for years, the consequences being the record-breaking losses, especially in 2017, when Ivica Marjanović was nominated President of the Supervisory Board. They also say that the experienced engineers will be the next ones to take the hit, as they will be transferred to other units, while a great number of young engineers have already left the factory.
"Dismissals of key managers happens at the time when the production of rifles for the US market needs to be improved significantly", say the unionists and announce that due to the latest worsening of the situation and conflict between the management and factory workers, the session of the Trade Union Assembly of “Zastava Arms” will be held today.

In Serbia, the coronavirus pandemic has led to a decline in working hours during the second quarter of 2020, equivalent to the loss of 510,000 full-time jobs. However, by offering the most generous and comprehensive economic package among the Western Balkan economies, the Serbian government contained “the expansion of poverty”, according to the new rapid assessment report, joint work of the ILO and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
Following the introduction of strict public health measures and the subsequent slump in economic activity, working hours in Serbia declined by an estimated 14.8 per cent during Q2/2020. Shorter working hours and furlough schemes contributed significantly to this decrease. If the health crisis persists and employment retention programmes discontinue, however, people may be pushed into unemployment, the study warns.
The report identifies sectors in which over 700,000 workers are at immediate risk as the health crisis persists: wholesale trade, retail trade, accommodation, transport, services, forestry and logging, and crop and animal production. Of this workforce, almost 314,000 work on their own account and over 267,000 are informal workers. Microenterprises, employing more than 735,000 workers, were hit hardest by the crisis with more than one in four completely ceased operating. The government provided a generous financial assistance measure in the form of employment retention subsidies, which for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises amounted to about 65 per cent of total labour costs.
While the report welcomes the “near universal support to both firms and citizens”, it also offers five preliminary policy recommendations:

• A more selective and targeted approach
• Solutions to support a large number of circular and seasonal workers
• Mitigating the less visible social costs of the pandemic
• Optimising the new youth employment programme
• Using social dialogue more consistently and more effectively.

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the ILO Office for Central and Eastern Europe and the EBRD established a joint task force to assess the impact of the crisis on the region’s economies by examining the likely short- and medium-term effects on employment and the labour market.

Workers don’t know how long they will be working, but at the moment there is some work to be done. They are coming back after a paid leave and collective annual leave. However, it is not known how many days they’ll spend in the production hall. What we do know is that the factory management is authorised by the government to send workers to a paid leave till the end of the current month. It will depend on the number of orders and the automobile industry market. Unfortunately, main markets where ‘FIAT 500L’ has been sold, such as in Italy, Spain and France, marked the biggest drop in demand for new cars, which during previous months amounted to even 70%, just to fall down to around 50%.
Preparations for the beginning of the new work cycle were made a week ago and with due respect of all protection measures the production is about to start. This means that upon entering the factory workers will have their temperature measured, they will get two masks, gloves and spray to disinfect their work place. Prescribed distance has to be respected, both in halls and the canteen.
When the COVID-19 epidemic started in March, workers of FIAT worked only for two weeks. They were on a paid leave from March 16 till July 7 because the automobile markets were getting closed around Europe. At first, they used up 45 days of annual leave, allowed in a single calendar year, during which they received 65% of their salary. At the beginning of May, factory management asked the government for additional 80 days of paid leave for workers and received the approval. The expiry date is the last day of September.
Throughout the year FIAT worked with reduced capacity, partly because of the corona virus, which fiercely hit the automobile market, and partly because the market for 500L almost doesn’t exist. It is saturated,so a lot of hope is invested in merging FIAT and Peugeot because it might result in a new model.
Anyway, this year’s production in FIAT will surely be the lowest since 2012, when the production in Kragujevac halls was renewed.
According to some estimates, since the beginning of this year there were 15,000-20,000 pieces of 500L model that have been made in FIAT factory in Kragujevac, which is almost six times less than in 2013, when a record number of 117,000 vehicles were produced on the assembly lines. Due to the fact that for past several years the export has been continuously slowing down and a significant drop in demand for cars during the pandemic occurred, FIAT isn’t among the five biggest exporters any more. Last year it was ranked second, just tofall down to the sixth place. In order to go back to the leading position it held for a long time, the recovery of global automobile industry is necessary, as well as the launch of the production of a new model. Whether and with what amount would the government help the factory in Kragujevac in 2020 is yet to be seen. In the past, they helped FIAT - only last year the company received grants and subsidies amounting to 2.5 billion dinars. But it was at the time when situation was much better, which makes the future of the automobile giant in Serbia utterly uncertain.

President of the Employers’ Club “Privrednik”, Zoran Drakulic, made some interesting comments on the minimum wage negotiation process and warned about dangers we might face during the painful recovery period. He said he was aware that we are in the middle of an extremely serious crisis, exacerbating employers’ feeling of anxiety and fears of what future might bring. That is why we hear some of them claiming the introduction of a moratorium on minimum wage increase for the time being. The crisis is unprecedented and one has to be very cautious on the salary issue. Still, it is obvious that the current amount is scandalously small and far from enabling people to pay for the consumer basket. “At the moment”, said Drakulic “the most logical solution would be a moderate increase of round 20 euros per month, i.e. up to 35,000 dinars (297 euros).
President of “Privrednik” is convinced that only the end of political games with employers and their inclusion in the economic policy creation team would lead to a considerable increase of the national GDP. Asked about the announced building of a new - glamourous and costly – stadium, he said he had nothing against the idea, but suggested its realization in the future “when Serbia would become a rich country”.
Especially interesting is Drakulic’s opinion about the possible instability caused by the pandemic and lockdowns. He hopes not to see the pessimistic unions’ predictions on mass dismissals realized (they spoke about 200 to 300 hundred thousand unemployed by the end of the year), but warns about “possible social disturbances in case this happens”.

Serbian Minister of Finance, Mali, announced that the last payment, amounting to 18,000 dinars (150 euros) will be made on September 8. Meant at mitigating the hard consequences of the corona-virus pandemic, it will be paid to more than one million workers, employed in 235,000 enterprises. It’s the second payment within the last of the two “assistance packages”, each payment equaling 60% of the statutory minimum salary. There were five of them since the corona crisis started, and they were all paid from the budget, the total value of the expenditure exceeding 130 billion dinars (1.1 billion euros).
It cannot be denied that the government lavishly assisted the business and the employees, as its program worth 5.8 billion euros is - judged by Serbian criteria - a gigantic expenditure. Its implementation prevented the realization of the catastrophic scenarios, which could have ended up with closure of many companies and mass dismissals – something which in certain countries has already been happening. Here, a great part of the business kept on working and each worker in SMEs got at least five times a sum equaling 60% of the minimum wage. The financial assistance was decisive in safeguarding the macroeconomic stability and maintaining the rate of employment almost unchanged. All this, however, might easily change in autumn, when the economy, after months of government support, will be left on its own- and that’s what the unions are mostly afraid of.
The total public assistance has amounted to 12.5% of our GDP and, as it seems, it helped preventing a precipitous fall of production and a sudden growth of unemployment. In the first six months of the crisis, the GDP surprisingly decreased by only 0.9%, which is a result that can be envied even by some more developed economies. However, the highly unforeseeable effects of the pandemic and the general negative inputs of the world market, make unions feel much more skeptical about the promised “rosy future”, especially taking into account the general neoliberal mentality of the leading government officials.

As negotiations among the representatives of trade unions, employers’ association and government ended up without success, a new round starting on September 1 has been announced. According to domestic regulation, the talks should be over by September 15 and their failure would trigger government action and a special law on the subject. Currently, round 350,000 people in Serbia live on the minimum wage. The last change occurred earlier this year, when it was increased from 27,000 dinars (229 euros) to 30,022 dinars (254 euros).
Both representative unions participating in the Social and Economic Council, CATUS and TUC Nezavisnost, demanded the minimum wage be increased from current 30,022 dinars (254 euros) to 37,500 dinars (318 euros) and equalled to the minimum consumer basket. Although aware of the consequences of the corona pandemic, the unions still reminded the government of the promise made in 2018 to equalize gradually the minimum wage and the price of the minimum consumer basket until the end of 2021.
The employers were more skeptical and insisted the increase should depend on the foreseen growth of the national GDP and inflation. They said they understood the workers’ claims, but thought they were not realistic. “The new amount should depend on the economic activity, and it’s senseless to base it only on the highly uncertain prognoses”, concluded the ex-President of the Association, Atanackovic. Generally speaking, the employers could accept an increase, but only on (a usual) condition the government reduce the taxes they have to pay. They also proposed a temporary “freezing” of the minimum wage until the creation of the new government or the January 1, 2021.
The representatives of the government presented various statistical data showing the major macroeconomic trends, but on the possibility of the minimum wage increase they kept silent.

In the Chamber of Commerce of Serbia they are of the opinion that the country will benefit from West European investors’ plans to safeguard their supply chains by transferring production from non-European countries to Europe. Because of their comparative advantages, the West Balkan markets might be of special interest for them.
Generally speaking, the investments in Serbia have not fallen down to a level which might cause anxiety. In a Chamber’s recent research, 72% of the companies confirmed they managed to keep their investment at the same level as before or had invested even more than in the past, 56% were still planning to invest in the third quarter and 65% intended to invest more than in the second quarter. Especially optimistic seems the fact that 94% of them do not expect a serious growth of unemployment in the recent future.
The need for work force varies according to sectors. Manufacturing industries still look for mechanical and civil engineers, lock-smiths, welders and construction workers. Curiously, the number of demands and offers has remained almost the same during the crisis. What is particularly interesting is a passionate search for hair-dressers, specialists for dog-trimming, beauticians, plumbers, electricians and house painters.
Additionally alarming is the return from abroad of 350,000 redundant Serbian workers who lost their jobs there, temporarily or permanently. Many are eagerly awaiting positive news from their earlier employers and are ready to go back to work, but some are more realistic and see their future in Serbia. They have intention to stay and look for job here, which might bring additional headache to our economic planners.

Serbian pensioners still stick to the promise of President Vucic given during the electoral campaign and hope that after a long period of fiscal consolidation (2014-2019), when pensions were first reduced and then “frozen”, they won’t be subject to some new government restrictive measures again. Vucic namely promised that “Serbia will pass through corona crisis more smoothly than other countries, without reduction of pensions and salaries in public sector”. A guarantee for that, he said, was a rather tolerable public debt, which stopped growing and makes up round 57% of country’s GDP at the moment.
The Fiscal Council is, however, much more skeptical. In their newest report it’s claimed that in 2021 wages could be frozen and pensions allowed only a slight growth. They insist the government should respect its own decision and instead of regulating pensions according to some arbitrary criterion, strictly respect the adopted “Swiss formula” (50% of pensions increase depending on inflation and 50% on productivity growth). The system, established in 2019, is now under a threat because of the pandemic and the economic crisis it triggered. In such difficult times it’s not the best one, but it could survive by modifying the parameters of the “Swiss formula” (75% of pensions increase depending on inflation and 25% only on productivity growth). That’s exactly what the Council suggested in 2019.
The pensioners’ associations and trade unions are unwilling to predict the future developments. Still, they are convinced that if our economy gets out of the present crisis relatively untouched, the existing level of pensions could be preserved – even with the application of the modified Swiss formula. There is, however, a problem related to 30.000 to 50.000 new unemployed - a fact that could seriously affect the financial input to the budget (still considerably contributing to Serbian pension system). It makes some extreme pessimists among the pensioners suspicious about government’s intentions and gets them to predict new measures that might lead to new reductions and freezing of the already poor pensions.

Debate on the efficiency of the “gift” (100 euros) the government gave to all full-of-age citizens before the elections, is still going on. Having in mind that the national GDP might contract by 3% this year and army of unemployed increased by new 30,000 to 50,000 members, its rationality is really controversial. “For the realization of a measure which did not seriously contribute to the solution of any social problem, the government spent a sum equaling the per year investment in the health system, says a member of the Fiscal Council, Petrovic. The situation has been additionally aggravated by a rather big public debt, amounting to 57% of the GDP, which makes further borrowing - necessary for the second phase of economic assistance to small and medium enterprises - more difficult”.
Petrovic is convinced that in autumn Serbia will be facing a recession. Economic activity will slow down, many will lose their jobs and wages in some sectors will go down. However, segments of economy will be affected differently: while many manufacturing sectors, tourism, catering and services in general will suffer considerable losses, the agriculture, food-processing and communications will keep their pace or have a negligible decrease. In contrast to the 2009 crisis, the exchange rate of the national currency and inflation rate is supposed to remain stable.
For assisting the SMEs and citizens 2.5 billion euros have been spent so far. As 30% of companies did not show interest in the assistance, the government got abundant additional means for economic and social purposes. Still, no changes were introduced into the first-phase assistance program, which treated all companies equally and was criticized unselective. This will negatively affect its efficiency and limit the possibility of significant investments in health sector which is confronted with the second wave of the pandemic. The cost of the above-mentioned “gift” is now becoming obvious: 600 million euros paid to the population could have been used to finance a year of social assistance for 500,000 people in need or cover cost of 200,000 unemployment benefits! Or – coming back to the beginning – increase the investment in health system five times!

During first phase of the pandemic, the government assistance to companies – meant to help them heal worst consequences of the economic crisis - was given indiscriminately. This time, it will be given only to small and medium enterprises. The former are those worth not more than 4 million euros, earning up to 8 million euros a year and having less than 50 workers. The latter are the ones whose value is not exceeding 20 million euros, with the profit up to 40 million euros and staff limited to 250 workers. Companies failing to fulfill these three criteria will not be entitled to the assistance. It was announced that the aid’s first part will be paid till August 10 and the second in September.
Although generally supporting the government action, the Employers’ Association of Serbia has had some additional claims. Among them is the one related to the value added tax in tourism and catering (to be brought down to 10%), municipal taxes (to be diminished by 30%) and regular fulfillment of all public sector financial obligations towards private companies, stemming from commercial contracts. However, the most controversial is the one related to sick leaves, which should not be paid by the employers, but by the National Health Insurance Fund. Obviously, the old idea of “privatising profits and socializing loses” in minds of Serbian entrepreneurs is still alive.
The experts criticize these claims as “unselective” and “overestimating the government’s capacities”. They think that criteria entitling companies to government assistance should be clearer and more precise, as there are companies that passed through the pandemic crisis almost untouched. They also insist that more attention should be paid to workers who will lose their jobs, than to employers’ over-dramatic appeals. The unions are also skeptical - backing the government assistance to companies, the CATUS President Orbovic characterized the employers’ idea of public-funded wages as “senseless”.

As COVID-19 epidemic opened up the issue of sick leave/furlough bonus, as well as the need to regulate more frequent work from home, representative of trade union confederations agree that rules of the game need to be determined.
Vice-President of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia, Duško Vuković, says that the amount of bonus is the biggest problem in case somebody gets infected. In the whole of public sector, he says, this bonus amounts to 100% of salary, except for the sector of culture.
‘These days we’re talking to the Ministries of Finance and Culture so that workers could get their full salary if they get infected by the virus and need to take a furlough or sick leave’, he says.
CATUS also thinks that self-isolation of 14-21 days should be considered by the employer as a type of work injury.
‘We can’t say where people get infected, maybe it could happen at work, too. For the benefit of company’s financial results, as well as employees, it is more effective for the employer to pay out the full salary to the isolated employee than to have them come to work where they could infect others because he could eventually get into a situation where there would be no one to do the job’, he explains.
Vuković says CATUS thinks that work from home should not be regulated by amendments to the law, but collective agreements because there are specifities and this should be the result of the agreement between trade unions and employers. ‘It would be good if the Employers’ Association of Serbia and representative trade unions made collective agreements covering all sectors and regulating this issue’, says Vuković. He also adds that trade union requests salaries not to be reduced while people are working from home, while this doesn’t stand for transport allowance and possibly hot meal bonus.
He confirms that the catering and hotel business sector has recently initiated a process of drafting a collective agreement between trade unions and employers.

Since July 21, 2020 workers of FIAT Chrysler Serbia have been on paid leave which will be linked to their collective annual leave, meaning they won’t come back to the factory till the beginning of September.
As paid leave had been approved by the Government, it is to be seen whether the workers will keep on resting even after September because it all depends on the the automobile industry market where the situation doesn’t look bright.
Vice-President of the autonomous trade union organisation, Nebojša Mandarić, explained that workers would be on their paid leave till July 31, 2020 and thoroughout the period they would receive 65% of their salary. Then, traditional Italian holiday ‘ferragosto’ follows from August 3 to August 21, which is used by all Italian workers in the first three weeks of August. Finally, in the last week of August workers won’t be going to work, but they will still be receiving 65% of their salary.
The reason to stop the production is the adjustment to market needs because the factory functions by order. Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, workers were on a paid leave from March 16 till July 7 because the automobile market all around Europe came to a halt.
CATUS Secretary, Zoran Mihajlović, who was once a trade union leader in the Kragujevac factory, says that this year FIAT was working with less capacity, partly because of the virus which fiercly hit the automobile market and partly because FIAT hasn't had a market for 500L model for a long time.
Statistics in Serbia show that in May the production of motor vehicles experienced the biggest semi-annual drop than all others in the processing industry, precisely by 70%. This is even an improvement compared to a semi-annual drop of 85% in April.
This year's production in FIAT will certainly be the smallest since 2012 when the production in Kragujevac workshops has been renewed. According to some estimates, in FIAT since the beginning of this year 15,000-20,000 pieces of 500L model have been made, which is almost six times less than in 2013, when a record number of 117,000 cars were produced on the assembly lines.

On June 30th, 2020 in the Trade Union House the 16th Congress of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia was held. Congress was attended by 296 delegates and around 150 guests. All the preparations were done with due respect of protective measures and physical distance.
Congress of the oldest and largest trade union confederation, which marks its 117th anniversary, conveyed a joint message Experience with us, Future ahead of us!
In his introductory speech CATUS President, Ljubisav Orbović, thanked the attendees for coming to Congress in these uncertain times and expressed satisfaction for having managed to organise Congress with only a month of delay due to the epidemic and emergency state. He also pointed out that in those circumstances the most difficult struggle was to maintain standard employment, fight against the misuse of technological development and digitalization, increasing social inequalities and discrimination.
‘Our task is to adjust to changes and give our contribution to creating more successful and more developed Serbia that cannot exist as such without satisfied workers and citizens’, said Orbovic.
‘Having in mind that even in these altered working conditions work will stay and so will exploitation, we need to step up our fight to protect workers’ rights and dignity’, he added.
According to him, ‘by promoting our endeavours and success, we shall prove that in those companies, factories and institutions where employees are unionised, rights are a lot less violated, working conditions are better and OHS is at a higher level’.
At the 16th Congress Ljubisav Orbović was re-elected CATUS President. The following documents were adopted: CATUS Activity Program, 7 Resolutions and 2 Declarations. Members of the Council, Statutary and Auditing Committees were elected for the upcoming mandate.
Congress was also addressed by Ivica Dačić, the First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Republic of Serbia; Zoran Đorđević, Labour Minister; Miloš Nenezić, President of Serbian Employers’ Association and Zoran Stojiljković, President of TUC NEZAVISNOST.
Luca Visentini, ETUC General Secretary, Sharan Burrow, ITUC General Secretary and Reiner Hoffman, DGB President took part in the work of the Congress through video messages. Regarding regional guests, Ranka Mišić, President of the Confederation of Trade Unions of the Republic of Srpska addressed the delegates in person.

The second wave of corona virus epidemic with a repetition of all things we’ve already seen (closure of factories and shops, quarantines and a broad lockdown) would have much more serious repercussions on Serbian economy than the first one. Asked to give their judgment on that issue the experts are almost unanimous: a come-back of the corona virus would bring us mass dismissals and a considerable reduction of wages. The mostly affected would be the small and medium enterprises which already ran out of reserves, used up all possible government assistance and risk to see their supply chains fatally disrupted – all this meaning a further slow-down of production, a reduction of profits and less need for workforce.
Although international financial institutions predict that Serbia could suffer from the current crisis less than the other countries, another lock-down would be a huge risk. Professor at the Belgrade Faculty of Economics, Ljubodrag Savic, emphasizes that “many companies are at the brink of bankruptcy and the government has no more means for assisting them”. “Although some segments of the economy have partly won back their partners and clients, their recovery is rather problematic as they depend much on supply chains and other sectors”.
“In the case of the second wave of the epidemic, many companies would not ask for government assistance, even if the credits were favourable - first, because they would be obliged to repay them and second, because their supply chains are broken and their products cannot be sold. Much, of course, would depend on the length of the second wave, however, many companies and even states could hardly recover from it even if it were not too long”, concludes Savic.
His colleague, Miroslav Zdravkovic, says that everything depends on the range of the government measures. He doubts that we could be completely isolated again and pushed into another lockdown, as a month after the epidemic broke out the world generally understood that the price of such lockouts was exaggerated and the disease not as dangerous as it seemed at the beginning. “At present, the industrial production of Serbia has sunk to the level of 2000, which means that we live in a situation we had 20 years ago”, adds Zdravkovic and concludes that our only hope are the still remaining fragments of the European welfare state and the resilience of German economy “capable of neutralising negative consequences of America’s horrific decline”.

The second wave of corona virus epidemic with a repetition of all things we’ve already seen (closure of factories and shops, quarantines and a broad lockdown) would have much more serious repercussions on Serbian economy than the first one. Asked to give their judgment on that issue the experts are almost unanimous: a come-back of the corona virus would bring us mass dismissals and a considerable reduction of wages. The mostly affected would be the small and medium enterprises which already ran out of reserves, used up all possible government assistance and risk to see their supply chains fatally disrupted – all this meaning a further slow-down of production, a reduction of profits and less need for workforce.
Although international financial institutions predict that Serbia could suffer from the current crisis less than the other countries, another lock-down would be a huge risk. Professor at the Belgrade Faculty of Economics, Ljubodrag Savic, emphasizes that “many companies are at the brink of bankruptcy and the government has no more means for assisting them”. “Although some segments of the economy have partly won back their partners and clients, their recovery is rather problematic as they depend much on supply chains and other sectors”.
“In the case of the second wave of the epidemic, many companies would not ask for government assistance, even if the credits were favourable - first, because they would be obliged to repay them and second, because their supply chains are broken and their products cannot be sold. Much, of course, would depend on the length of the second wave, however, many companies and even states could hardly recover from it even if it were not too long”, concludes Savic.
His colleague, Miroslav Zdravkovic, says that everything depends on the range of the government measures. He doubts that we could be completely isolated again and pushed into another lockdown, as a month after the epidemic broke out the world generally understood that the price of such lockouts was exaggerated and the disease not as dangerous as it seemed at the beginning. “At present, the industrial production of Serbia has sunk to the level of 2000, which means that we live in a situation we had 20 years ago”, adds Zdravkovic and concludes that our only hope are the still remaining fragments of the European welfare state and the resilience of German economy “capable of neutralising negative consequences of America’s horrific decline”.

The corona crisis has negatively affected all the world's economies and they are now looking for the ways that might help them return to the old levels of production, as quickly and as safely as possible. In the neighboring Croatia, they are seriously considering the German model of "Kurzarbeit", i.e. a reduced working week, which helped many work places there to survive.
In order to recover from the corona crisis, the economies are sticking to models that proved to be efficient in previous financial crises. One of them is the “short-time working”, helping workers keep their jobs and companies not lose quality staff and trained workforce who would be hard to find in the case of recovery. The idea is that companies keep on working and covering their workers’ wages four days a week, while the fifth day (which is a day-off) is covered by the government. During the previous crises about 1.5 million German workers (in 2008) and seven million (during the ongoing crisis) benefitted from it. However, according to the experts, a scheme like this wouldn’t be feasible in Serbia - no matter how good it may sound. "Some solutions that are possible in rich and developed European countries are not possible here because we still don’t have a level of economy enabling our government to provide so massive subsidies," the President of the Employers’ Association of Serbia, Atanackovic, told us. He claims that similar recovery models are easy to apply in rich countries, such as Norway, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, but in Serbia which is much poorer, it is simply impossible. The European Union will use huge funds, going up to 1.5 billion euros, to help the economy of the Eurozone. A part of that money will be given to the neighboring Croatia as well and it will certainly help its economy. It is true that Balkan countries which do not make part of the Union yet will also receive some aid, but it will be ten times less than the one granted to Croatia as a member of the EU”.
On the other hand, the economist Aleksandar Stevanovic points out that "the government money does not fall from the trees and therefore one must bear in mind that not all the companies need an equal support. “The question” he says “is how to define the criteria entitling you to the assistance. Some need more help, some less and those who benefitted from the crisis don’t need it at all. It is indisputable that the government should continue to support business, but they should do it in accordance with their possibilities. The real question now is how to determine who exactly needs the help and who doesn’t". explains Stevanović.

More than 400,000 Serbian workers left their jobs in EU countries and came back to Serbia following the outbreak of the corona virus epidemic.
Tomorrow the government will start to pay out minimum wages (30.000 dinars i.e. 254 euros) to one million employees working in Serbian SMEs. The money (32 billion dinars i.e. 271.186 million euros, in total) will be deposited to the accounts of 232.000 companies. The initial payment was made at the beginning of May and the third will follow the first week of July. All payments will cost the government more than 800 million euros, the money being a part of a huge 5.1 billion euro plan aimed at rescuing Serbian economy. While workers in SMEs are entitled to full minimum wages, those working in big companies will get only a half of it – 15.000 dinars (177 euros) each.
The entitled to the state-funded minimum wage are only workers in formal sector with full or fixed time employment contracts. Unfortunately, the government did not show much compassion for the difficulties of temporary and seasonal workers who will be forced to find out by themselves how to survive. The retirees who keep on working will be treated the same way, as well as pregnant and post-partal female employees, whose salaries will be covered fully from the budget.
The Minister of Finance, Mali, has recently announced that the state was preparing twenty new additional economic measures, which, as he said, will be focused on new employment. According to him, a part of them will refer to the reduction of taxes and contributions for new employees, normally paid by the employers and another part to the direct subsidies for each newly employed worker.
The owners and directors of the companies are generally satisfied with the economic measures implemented by the Government of Serbia and have followed their recommendation not to lay off workers. The economy is slowly starting to work and open up, and Serbia will probably soon feel a growing need for an improved dual education system, able to provide a skilled workforce that will be ready to face the challenges of the hard times-to-come.

More than 400,000 Serbian workers left their jobs in EU countries and came back to Serbia following the outbreak of the corona virus epidemic.
Last year, according to the World Bank estimates, our employees working abroad remitted 4,16 billion dollars to Serbia, which was enough to cover two thirds of its foreign trade deficit and more than enough to considerably raise the living standard of the recipients. The Bank now estimates that this year the sum will be reduced by 28% i.e. by 1,2 billion dollars. In first two months of this year it already decreased from 495 to 451 million dollars (almost by 10%).
In a highly controversial statement, President of Serbia, Vucic, invited the repatriated workers to “stay and start working in Serbia, as they could make their life much better here than anywhere else”. He concluded by saying that in Serbia they would be able to earn a sum equal to their former remittances.
The experts are, however, much less convinced about the feasibility of this project and qualify it as wishful thinking. Professor of Economics at Belgrade University, Petar Djukic, thinks that our economy will be seriously affected by the current crisis and that majority of Serbian workers who worked abroad will not be able to keep their jobs there. Many of them left the homeland because they lived in extremely difficult conditions, so the loss of a secure income which let them live decent lives will certainly affect their well-being. As a consequence of the massive workers comeback, Djukic expects a drop of wages and employment. The private business will suffer most, but public sector should not feel protected either – it is difficult to keep the same number of employees and same salaries in a situation where the economic activity could easily decrease by 5%.
Other experts point to the necessity of a new strategy of economic development, similar to Roosvelt’s “New Deal”, as they simply don’t see other way of facing the challenge of the enormous influx of unemployed coming from EU countries. Still, there is the problem of necessary means because the country first must pay the debt it made fighting the pandemic. After all, the experts of the European Commission fear that the unemployment which recently fell down to 10.3% might grow to 12.7%. The IMF is even more pessimistic: skeptical about our workers’ fast return to Western Europe, they prefer to speak about 13.4% unemployment increase.

The strongest economies in the euro-zone (and at the same time the most important trade partners of Serbia) have been severely hit by the corona virus pandemic. In Germany and Austria, where around 750,000 Serbian citizens live and work, the economy has been at a stand-still for almost two months and the unemployment increased by more than 10%. In Germany the government expects a big surge of bankruptcies and additional three million unemployed, while in the US, with its numerous Serbian community, their number may soon go over 42 million.
This situation made more than 400,000 Serbian citizens, mostly unqualified workers or those whose status has not been regulated, go back home. According to the economists, the return of such a large number of workers will surely lead to an increase of our unemployment rate. As many of the returnees say, a big number of workers in Western Europe were laid off because of corona crisis and no one knows how long this situation will last. According to the data of the National Employment Agency there were 513,058 unemployed in Serbia at the end of March.
"There is an impression that the employers in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and other countries, where many Serbs live and work, fire the foreigners first, but to a certain extent this is logical. Because of the mass dismissals many of the “guest” workers will have to go back home and consequently cause an additional unemployment, much higher than the one we had before the epidemic. At the same time, an increased offer of labour will exert pressure on the rest of workers and make them feel more anxious and insecure ", explains the economist Ljubomir Madžar and adds that fierce competition on labour market will put employers in a more advantageous position and facilitate further restrictions of workers’ rights.He thinks, however, that as time goes by, people will start thinking about returning to Western Europe. As soon as the corona virus crisis is over, their employers will also be readier to install them at their previous workplaces. "Those workers have already acquired a good reputation there, rooted themselves in local societies, adjusted to the new culture and social environment, so I’m sure that for employers a come-back will be an attractive option. Moreover, it is well known that the demographic situation in the West does not inspire much optimism. The population is rapidly getting old, number of pensioners rising and number of active citizens decreasing, which means that new workers will do those countries quite good. So, I expect them to go back to places they temporarily had to leave", concludes Madžar.
Ljubodrag Savić, Professor at the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade, is of the same opinion, but adds that certain number of returnees will probably stay and look for a job in Serbia. However, working mostly in the informal sector and having no motivation to apply for a place on the Employment Agency’s list, they shouldn’t increase the unemployment rate significantly. "Those who have returned to Serbia are mostly workers who do manual work which is often rejected by those who stayed. People most often entered EU with tourist visas. One part of their ex-jobs will survive, but not many of them and that is why they will choose to stay here. Those who opt for a return, will have to consider some limiting factors, not depending on us but being part of the EU and member-states’ regulation", explains Professor Savić and adds he personally expects to see the situation in Western Europe improved by the end of the year - unless the pandemic reappears. Reminding that Germany lacks labour force, he warns us that their GDP has fallen by a two-digit number, and concludes that with such future prospects it is not realistic to expect the number of employees to stay the same.

An analysis made by SeConS Group and Friedrich Ebert Foundation has shown that 200.000 Serbian workers (many of them working in informal sector and as self-employed) lost their jobs during the pandemic and the state of emergency. The research was made on a sample of 1.600 people who still worked in February this year.
Half of them were dismissed because their company stopped working and one quarter because they were not offered a new contract after the expiry of the previous one. The rest was forced to quit because in a situation where no public traffic worked, where kindergartens and schools were closed and the institutions for home care of the elders stopped offering services – they simply could not reconcile their work and private life.
The mostly affected were the employees in private companies, in sectors such as catering, commerce and construction industry. Among them, the consequences of the crisis were mostly felt by the self-employed, by workers in informal sector and by those with fixed-term contracts. The cities did better than the villages and the elders better than the youth. It’s interesting that in urban areas there were more men under risk than women, while in the rural ones it was the opposite.
Round 4% of employees were forced to go on holidays and 4% did the same in agreement with the employers. One fourth worked part-time and 5.6% saw their wages reduced.
Still, the heaviest burden was borne by the women who made 86% of those in the front line of the pandemic. At the same time, in 70% of the households it was also them to do the usual housework and take care of youngsters and elders.
The most of Serbs adapted themselves well to work from home (25% of them). A majority (90%) said their private equipment was sufficient and satisfactory, while 15% stated they were less efficient than usually.
The results of the research differ a lot from the official data published by the government and speaking about only 7.317 jobless seeking for help at the counters of the National Employment Agency.

As journalists were told by the Autonomous Trade Union in the company (affiliated to the CATUS), the fact that company asked for an additional leave for workers in Kragujevac factory, could mean they hoped the leave, which was supposed to last till May 18, might be prolonged almost till autumn.
Trade Union President, Zoran Marković, said that one of those days he expected an official company announcement, saying whether workers would come back to work the following week or their leave would be prolonged. Having in mind current developments of the pandemic and the unstable epidemiologic situation around Europe, he said that a prolongation of the paid leave was a more probable alternative. He explained the Kragujevac car producer asked the Ministry of Labour for the approval of additional 80 days paid leave, because the legally granted 45 days leave had already been used up.
"We think that through these additional days the company wants to cover all possible work stoppages which might occur in the future, primarily due to the unstable situation with corona virus, but to the other reasons, too. We hope this new paid leave won’t be used in continuity, but will be intermittent and allow us to have working days in factory, as well ", said Marković.
Explaining that the additional 80 days paid leave, together with 15 days of the collective summer holiday, could cover a period lasting till September 30, he confirmed that the opinion of the Autonomous Trade Union, related to the submission of the request, was asked for.
Marković said that the union – having in mind the current situation with corona virus epidemic and the fact that the workers will receive a compensation for non-working days – responded positively to the management’s suggestion.

While 40% of Serbian citizens said they didn’t need any help in the critical situation caused by the pandemic of corona virus, more than a half, precisely 55% expressed their need to get financial aid, shows the research conducted by the MASMI – the international agency for market and public opinion research.
A half of population able to work and older than 16 (with students and pensioners who are not working left out of the count), were in a way influenced by the spread of corona virus. About 29% were working from home, 12% were on a paid leave, 6% on an unpaid leave, while 4% were laid off. Only 29% of workers kept on working under same or similar conditions.
Even though 52% of citizens found themselves in a complicated, but bearable situation provoked by the epidemic, every fourth citizen estimated that the situation did not get too complicated and the life would soon return to normal. However, 17% of the polled said they needed a delay of loan payment.
To what extent Serbian citizens are financially vulnerable in this period is made visible by the fact they would not give up a part of their salary so that their company could go on working. Only 10% said they would agree to the reduction of their salary because of this and it is similar with giving up their salary for the sake of securing workplaces of workers with low qualifications.
Pandemic was a trigger of worry, but not of panic for 53% of citizens, while the majority, around 38% feared for their and their family’s health and well-being. However, for 16% of them the usual way of living does not exist anymore, while 13% said they were suffering from anxiety, even 7% had panic attacks and a same percentage had no hope for the future.
While 40% of citizens suppose the world will never be the same again, 30% are convinced that the pandemic is not all negative, but it also contains some positive sides and the humanity will deal with it fast. Optimistic attitude that the world will get out of this stronger than before is shared by only 25% of the polled.

Judging by the official data, Serbian economy has survived the first wave of corona pandemic, while the manufacturing industry has even registered some growth. In a statement issued recently, the Chamber of Commerce seemed to be convinced that the economic activities would be brought back to normality by mid-May. Out of 130,000 employees sent to forced leaves at the peak of the crisis, they said, 42,000 have already been back to their work places in more than 40 companies and the number will grow with a progressive reopening of the public transport.
From 50 to 60% of small and medium enterprises, employing round 350,000 people, have not closed their doors during the past turbulent period and the rest are expected to reopen also by mid-May. For the moment there is information about only little more than a thousand work contracts that were cancelled at the initiative of the employers.
There are, however, critics of the official position saying that many small companies will never manage to recover and will leave tens of thousands of workers without a job. Those remaining will face salary reductions, forced holidays and paid/unpaid leaves, while the number of the unemployed will steadily grow (next year it could reach 13%, which is a considerable increase compared to today’s 10%).
According to the data of the research agency Infostud, one third of the total work force has been temporarily sent home to “rest” and 12% lost their jobs definitely (one half for closure of their companies and one third for decline of business activities). A survey done by the agency showed that one third of the workers feared for the future of their jobs.

The notorious South-Korean company producing spare parts for cars keeps on tirelessly violating Serbian labour and sanitary legislation. Although they are back to work after a short industrial action, workers are still dissatisfied.
In spite of the strict sanitary and hygienic rules issued by the City of Nis Crisis Headquarter, which stipulate a maximum of 50 workers per 5,000 square meters and a minimum distance of 2 meters among them, the employer is stubbornly massing people in a narrow and airless space. The shop-stewards have counted 500 instead of 110 workers permitted in the shift. That was done intentionally on weekend , as on these days the Labour Inspection usually rests.
A special problem has surged with the transport of workers, as the company has done little to safeguard their health in heavy times of COVID-19 epidemic. Distances stipulated by the authorities cannot be respected on buses, where people are transported “as pressed as sardines in a fish can”. It’s understandable when one has in mind that buses are few and workers too many.
The most recent story is the one related to the Labour Inspection. A service that once upon a time was highly respected and feared, was postponing its arrival to the factory and, then, after finally coming, checking workers’ grievances and making a report, left declaring they had found no violation of rules. The report’s arrival to the trade union premises is still pending.
It’s quite logical that in a situation where workers are constantly blackmailed by threats of dismissal, such perfect combination of Neoliberals in power, Far-East capitalist tyrants and sluggish Labour Inspection must end up in a violation of basic rights and monstrous super-exploitation.

After exhausting the quota of 45 days off, guaranteed by the domestic legislation, the management of FCA Serbia asked Serbian government for a new, 40-days break. The reason is obvious (epidemic of COVID-19) and the demand rather convincing, especially because the workers would be remunerated according to the law. Last year, the FCA already stopped production after getting government’s consent for additional 87 days off. Then, the reason was different: decline in sales of the once popular model 500L. Workers were also paid according to the law (65% of the regular salary), which is hardly enough for decent living. Workers in FIAT Plastica, which is one of the FCA subcontractors, got even less - only 60% of their regular wage.
The nature of labour relations in the company can best be understood having in mind the fact that the trade unions were not consulted at all.
The workers are convinced that government will accept the management’s demand smoothly. They think it’s a means of preparing company for possible difficulties in the future caused by further development of the COVID-19 epidemic, the duration of which is hard to predict. Serious problems, the Northern Italy and China - main deliverers of FIAT 500L spear parts - have been facing, are well known. There have been no deliveries for many weeks. The continuation of production depends not only on the corona virus epidemic’s easing off in Serbia, but in other countries, as well (including Spain and France – two main markets for FIAT 500L sales).

Although the economists mostly supported government crisis measures, some of them have already been severely criticized. Primarily, the decision to pay out of the budget a sum of 100 euros to all full of age citizens is under attack. So far, no one knows who precisely will be entitled to the donation, i. e. does it cover or not Serbian citizens abroad. The majority in the Fiscal Council is convinced that government did not give enough reasons for such payment. The usual explanations citing its role in speeding up the growth or helping the realization of social justice are not logical. According to them, a measure having no economic or social justification is only to disturb the recently acquired fiscal stability, increase indebtedness and slow down country’s development. Especially embarrassing is the fact that the amount will be paid only after the epidemic is over. Why, then, was it ever included in the recovery package?
The donation will not spur production because the problem we are currently confronted with is not a lack of money in citizens’ pockets, but disruptions in supply chains and lack of workers who are obliged to stay at home and cannot go to work. Nor will it increase demand which has also been limited not for the lack of money, but for citizens’ confinement. After all, a big part of the donation will be used for buying imported goods, which will add to foreign trade deficit and weaken the domestic currency.
Besides, there is no argument to support this measure from the social point of view, either. The Council argues that at the international level it’s hard to find a country which donates all its citizens, without any selection. Usually there are strong criteria in directing money precisely to those who mostly need it - to the unemployed, self-employed, parents who take care of school children and some categories of the retired.
The main reason for Council’s criticism, however, is a tremendous “hole” that will be made in the budget by a 70 billion dinars (593 million euros) spending (equaling 1.3% of the country’s GDP).
The economists have calculated that such an amount would be sufficient to cover one-year unemployment benefits for 200,000 jobless or 500,000 of those who receive some kind of social assistance.

Yesterday, Serbian Minister of Finance, Mali, announced the government’s readiness to activate the Development Fund and start assisting companies-victims of the COVID-19 crisis. Those having interest in that are invited to send their requests for help, while the government experts are preparing a legal framework for crediting (mostly) micro, small and medium entreprises. The total value of the state-backed package is two billion euros and the first amounts will be assigned to companies’ accounts in April. A similar program has been created for peasants, as well.
Each of those working in the above-mentioned companies, as well as peasants, will get an amount equaling three minimum wages (three times 30,000 dinars i.e. thrice 257 euros) that will be paid in May, June and July. Workers in big companies, who were not dismissed but mostly temporarily suspended, will get only the half of that sum. In order to receive the money, companies will have to open separate bank accounts. Those who apply for assistance, while acting contrary to the government’s recommendation and dismissing more than 10% of their work force, will be severely fined (up to 5,000 euros). Those who get a credit will be obliged to respect the same 10% rule.
The loans will be repaid in 36 installments, with a grace period of 12 months. The maximum amounts vary between 10 million dinars (85,000 euros) for craftsmen and micro companies and 40 million dinars (340,000 euros) for medium ones.

One of the latest scandals in Serbia is the day-to-day toppling of workers’ rights in South Korean company JURA, which has its factory in the city of Leskovac. After trying many times to make contacts with the management and alarm the Labour Inspection, CATUS had to turn to the COVID-19 Crisis Headquarters. President Orbovic informed them that severe restrictions imposed on all territory of Serbia and almost entire population obviously had no impact on JURA directors, who insisted that all workers had to keep on working and accept being transferred from/to their homes in overcrowded buses and without any personal protection. At the same time the workers were blackmailed in the worst possible way, as they could choose between working regularly with a 40 euro weekly bonus or being dismissed!
Against the anti-COVID-19 regulation in force, the company’s management did not introduce any protective measures at production lines, nor prevented workers from coming into close contact with each other. There have already been eight corona cases among them, but the fact that in total there are 2,800 employees provokes the fear that soon we could witness a local pandemic. One more aggravating circumstance for the company is the fact that its production (spare parts) can no way be labelled as an “essential”, which shows that their only motivation is the profit. Workers’ refusal to enter the factory was dealt with by a typical “take it or leave it” proposal, which put them before a choice: to stay (on employers’ conditions) or “freely” depart (leaving behind them their jobs and wages). This is only one of the poisonous fruits of the government’s policy which aimed to attract foreign capital by making publicity of Serbia as a country with cheapest labour in the region, abundance of unemployed workers and liberal Labour Law. There were international speculators who quickly understood the message and rushed to invest in capitalists’ Promised Land, JURA group being one of them. The results were low-quality and insecure jobs, poor wages and lack of any serious respect for labour rights. The unions have never been welcome there and any attempt to establish them lead to mobbing and dismissals. Is it possible that community has lost all control over its future and depends on the mercy of people who have no intention to improve public good but only to extract extra-profits? Is the moment approaching when the people will stand up against such authoritarian outlaws (because they are outlaws violating constantly the law) and their Serbian executors and give them a lesson of justice? Probably it is, because after the end of the epidemic nothing will be the same.

PROGRAM OF ECONOMIC MEASURES OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA AIMED AT REDUCING NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF THE CORONA VIRUS AND SUPPORTING SERBIAN ECONOMY

On March 31, 2020 the Government of the Republic of Serbia published the Program of Measures Aimed at Reducing Negative Effects of the Corona Virus and Supporting Serbian Economy (hereinafter: Program), which was explained by the Finance Minister, Siniša Mali.
Main objectives of measures contained in the Program are:

1. to maintain employment during the state of emergency and
2. to help enterprises whose functioning has been made difficult, primarily entrepreneurs, micro, small and medium enterprises.

In order to help the economy and the citizens, a total of 608.3 billion dinars (5.1 billion euros) was set aside, which represents a half of the budget of the Republic of Serbia or 11% of its GDP.
The aid will be financed:

1. partly from the budget and
2. partly through credits taken on domestic and international capital market (with public debt never exceeding 60% of the GDP).

Program contains four sets of measures
The first set of measures is related to the payment of taxes, aimed at protecting the liquidity of business entities. State will take over the payment of 161 billion dinars (1.3 billion euros).
The list of tax relieves contains:

1. delay in paying taxes on wages and paying contributions for private companies during the state of emergency (with a subsequent payment in installments, starting from 2021 at the earliest);
2. delay in paying income taxes for all independent entrepreneurs.

Employers who choose to use the measure under 1) may use the delay in paying taxes on wages and paying contributions till the beginning of 2021, and afterwards they will have a possibility of a further delay up to 24 months, but no longer - without the obligation to pay any interest.
Delay in advance payments of corporate income tax in the second quarter of this year is aimed at increasing the liquidity of tax payers.
Also, givers of donations will be exempted from paying VAT.
The second set of measures is related to directly helping both entrepreneurs paying flat-rate taxes and those paying income tax - micro, small and medium enterprises in the private sector. During the state of emergency they will be paid an aid equal to minimum wage.
Big enterprises whose employees were sent on forced leaves due to the reduction of business activities or complete work stoppage, will be paid a per-worker-aid equaling to 50% of the minimum wage.
This package will cost 97.3 billion dinars (824 million euros), and the money will go directly to workers (around 900,000 of them) through a special account.

The third set of measures is related to protecting the liquidity of business entities. The following is planned:

1. granting credits for safeguarding liquidity and current assets for companies managed by entrepreneurs, micro, small and medium business entities, agricultural husbandries and cooperatives through the Development Fund;
2. creating guarantee schemes for the support of economy through commercial banks, where the state will be a warrantor.

One of the ways of financing, which big companies can rely on, is a corporate bond.
Measures contained in those three sets of measures are not applied to business entities which:

1. during the state of emergency reduced the number of employees by more than 10% (excluding employees with fixed-time contracts whose contracts are to expire during the state of emergency);
2. temporarily interrupted their operations before the announcement of the state of emergency, i.e. before March 15, 2020.

The Fourth set of measures is related to a 100 euro (per person) aid, which will be paid to every citizen of age.

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Having in mind that first of the proposed measures will start taking effect only in the second half of May this year, we are of the opinion that they were taken with delay. We also think that certain measures had to be more selective. For example, the aid amounting to 100 euros will be paid to every citizen of age regardless of their level of income, which means that the same amount will be granted to those earning over 200,000 dinars per month and those having no income at all. This example is sufficient to show the unorganized nature of our system of social protection and the effects of non-existence of adequate so-called “social cards” (personal income and ownership data).
It is quite clear that in 2020 Serbia won’t reach the planned growth rate of 4%, but most probably will see it halved.