Production of Social Critique
Online workers held a protest on Saturday in front of the National Assembly of Serbia. The authorities accepted invitation to negotiations, stated Miran Pogačar, president of the Association of Internet Workers (URI). Members of URI added that this is a small victory and that they will continue to fight.
Around fifty workers from China, dissatisfied by their working conditions, started a protest the day before yesterday in front of the headquarters of the Zidjin company, in which they are engaged. At the same time, the “Nezavisnost” trade union, present in the company, announced that according to the new collective agreement, the management of Zidjin plans to abolish numerous employee benefits, reduce pay for night work and abolish holidays financial support.
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.
The Radical Left Party (Partija radikalne levice, PRL) was formed by transforming the Social Democratic Union, whose members adopted the new political Programme, the Declaration of Workers’ Rights, as well as the necessary statutory changes, at the 12th regular congress. According to the programme, the PRL will “fight for a socialist society based on equality, solidarity, freedom, democracy, internationalism, anti-imperialism and anti-fascism, a society in which people will be more important than profit”.
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.
The construction workers from India who started a strike in the middle of the previous week, demanding their overdue wages and to be allowed to return home, will be able to travel back starting this week, Mašina found out. This is not the first time that workers from India are dissatisfied with working conditions in Serbia, and the whole case raised questions regarding the necessity of international cooperation, which we discussed with representatives of the trade unions from Serbia and India.
Serbian government once again excelled at supporting youth employment. The “My first salary” government programme, implemented by the National Employment Service, provides companies with cheap labour force, besides being dubiously...
According to Kraljevo online, 42 construction workers from India are protesting in front of the seat of the city administration in the center of Kraljevo: sitting quietly on the sidewalk,...
“It is our duty to be here, to show that we will not put up with injustice” and “We will be even louder until all political prisoners are released” are some of the messages activists of the Joint Action Roof over Your Head addressed the public with at Wednesday’s protest in front of the Misdemeanor Court in Belgrade.
The crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic deepens the already serious social and economic problems the societies in the region of former socialist Yugoslavia face. Our struggle must include solidarity politics, stated the four leftist parties that adopted the Declaration on Regional Solidarity.
The beginning of the week saw the dissolution of what started as the biggest protest in Serbia in a decade. Activist organisations and few opposition parties continue to demand the release of whom they claim to be unjustly jailed “political prisoners”.
The police arrested non-violent protesters, among them leftist activists, on the sixth day of protests. Joint Action Roof Over Your Head organized a protest outside Central Prison in Belgrade demanding...
Police brutality marks the first two days of protests in Belgrade, while the third protest goes on without incidents.
For two days in a row Serbian citizens have been protesting against their government and the new anti-pandemic measures the president had announced. Both on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon the protests started peacefully, only to turn into a havoc of protester-police clashes and police brutality as the night fell. The alt-right is trying claim the lead and steer the riots according to their agenda. Meanwhile, some left wing organizations see the demonstrations as a spontaneous expression of people’s justifiable dissatisfaction with the government and long accumulated anger.
Protests in Serbia erupted on July 7 after president Aleksandar Vučić announced that the government will reintroduce heavily restrictive measures due to the bad epidemiological situation in the country. During his announcement the president put blame on the citizens for the acute health crisis. The protests continued last night in several cities in Serbia. Similarly to the first night, there were riots and brutal police violence.
The green-left coalition won 7 seats at the Croatian 151-seat parliament, surprising everybody. The turnout was less than 50%, the lowest ever in Croatia’s parliamentary election. The conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) won the biggest chunk of the electorate, while the Social Democratic Party (SDP) suffered a heavy blow to its position. Several right-wing parties won seats, too.
According to Luka Mesec, coordinator of the Slovenian party Levica (the Left) and Slovenian MP, the coronavirus pandemic exposed many of the capitalist system’s shortcomings, creating opportunities for left-wing politics. The pandemic has clearly shown that it is the workers, and not the managers, who ensure the functioning of our economies, emphasizes Mesec.
Mašina was awarded a special plaque by the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (NUNS) “for an innovative approach to investigative journalism and coverage of the topic of workers’ rights in Serbia”, as it was said at the ceremony. The plaque was also awarded to the editorial board of Južne vesti, while the awards for investigative journalism were given to colleagues: Adam Santovac, Aleksandar Đorđević, Jelena Veljković and Vuk Cvijić.
Arnaldo Otegi is the general coordinator of the Basque EH Bildu, which unites different sectors and parties of the left. The fourth guest of the series of talks “Meeting the Left” spoke about the revolutionary program minimum, the need for a different Europe and the need to cooperate more on the left.
Serbian citizens donated a total of 1.5 billion Serbian dinars (close to 13 million euros) to the Democratic Party (DS), the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) between 2012 and 2018, according to a research of the parties’ financial statements, conducted by the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia (CINS).