The Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Belgrade opposes the privatization of the Pharmacy “Belgrade”. The trade union believes that this pharmacy institution, whose founder is the city of Belgrade, must remain a part of the public health system and a guarantee of adequate supply of medicines to the citizens.
A protest against the announced dismissal of 200 workers of the Radio-Television of Vojvodina, who have been hired through an employment agency, was held today at noon in front of Studio M in Novi Sad.
The Radio-Television of Vojvodina’s (RTV) branch union, belonging to the United Branch Trade Union Independence, organised a press conference on Monday, on the occasion of the announced dismissal of their 250 colleagues, who have been engaged through an employment agency.
Every year, thousands of medical workers leave Serbia and the surrounding Balkan countries for Germany, where hospital and retirement homes are more than willing to dish out hefty sums to intermediaries who bring in fresh employee material. It is a play on people looking for a better life, with plenty of money involved. But who are the key players?
Export of medical health professionals is weakening the public health system in Serbia and is against the interest of its citizens, says Mario Reljanović, a research fellow of the Belgrade Institute of Comparative Law.
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.
Post of Serbia workers rejected the government’s salary increase proposal yesterday. A large number of employees of this profitable company currently earn wages closer to the minimum wage than the average earnings in the republic.
A large number of Post of Serbia workers continue the work stoppage they started two days ago. The reason for dissatisfaction are low salaries and the management’s wage increase proposal, which many workers deem unfair. After the main postal center in Zemun was blocked on Monday night, a series of stoppages in postal units in many cities across Serbia followed. Delivery workers and drivers are most likely to suspend work, while counter clerks joined at different locations.
The main postal center in Zemun is again blocked after workers suspended work last night. Postal workers arriving from several cities organized a protest the previous evening in front of the Zemun GPC to express dissatisfaction with the management and authorities who did not respect the pay increase arrangements.
The self-organised workers of Post Serbia and the Serbian government signed an agreement, thus ending the strike in the company. The agreement guarantees partial improvements of the workers’ financial condition, without actually fulfilling their demands.
Seven days into the strike in post Serbia and the complete shutdown in several of its units, negotiations were started between the management and the self-organised workers’ negotiating team. Given that none of the demands have been accepted, the strike will continue.
The main postal distributive centres in Serbia, Belgrade, Novi Sad and Niš are currently blocked. Self-organised workers stopped the working process. Their main demands are the improvement of their material conditions and employing new workers which would help ease the existing work overload.
Professional city bus drivers are leaving Serbia with a one-way ticket increasingly often. The prolongation of working hours, low salaries and irrational business policies of the City public transport company Belgrade do not only motivate the drivers to emigrate, but also serve as arguments for further privatization of the company.
At yesterday’s press conference representatives of education trade unions (the SPRS Union, the GSPRS Nezavisnost, SRPS, SOS) announced a protest motivated by the introduction of a new salary structure in the public sector. The protest named “Justice before money” will be held on the August 31, at noon, in front of the Serbian Ministry of education.
Private-public partnerships in public services sector represent just another instrument for private businesses to get their hands on public funds. BusPlus is a typical example of such business model in Serbia whose downsides have been obvious for years now.
