Serbian Agency Employment Law: Will it help workers or put them in a disadvantage?

Domestic legislation has for the first time regulated the position of employees engaged through agencies, although such employment has existed for years. In what way and how much will the new law help agency workers? We discussed this with Jugoslav Ristić, president of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions in Kragujevac and Mario Reljanović, an expert in labour law.

Three Draxelmaier’s workers fired because of the strike

Three workers of the Dräxlmaier factory in Zrenjanin, Serbia were fired , according to Masina’s sources. At the beginning of October workers in all three shifts discontinued work for an hour to protest against low wages and vague criteria for payroll calculation. Dräxlmaier suspended 32 workers on the account of strike. However, most suspensions have been lifted after the Labour inspectorate intervened.

Fatal accidents at Belgrade Waterfront construction site – interview with a witness

Masina’s journalists managed to talk with a worker engaged at the Parkview construction site, who witnessed a tragedy in which the lives of two of his co-workers were lost. According to his words the working conditions at the Belgrade waterfront construction site are terrible, there are workers without employment contracts, and the labour inspection announces its arrival beforehand.

Fifty shades of exploitation

Internships, traineeships and other programmes for acquiring work experience are increasingly becoming a precondition to getting a labour contract. Even though interns are performing roles of workers, in most cases they are not paid for them nor is their employment guaranteed after the programme has ended.