Production of Social Critique
Aware that their services are needed during the outbreak of coronavirus, the Glovo App delivery workers keep driving. They ask no dedication award from the company, but demand to be fairly paid and that their wages return to their January levels – to that end they have started organizing.
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 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.
A traffic accident in Serbian capital Belgrade in which a Wolt bicycle courier got injured raised concerns about Wolt couriers’ working conditions and status. Are they employed and where, do they have health and social insurance, right to sick leave, vacations, how much do they earn…
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.
Contrary to the officials’ pompous announcements, the newly introduced legal measures diminish financial support for expectant and new mothers.
Contrary to the promise it made five years ago, H&M pays its workers less than living wage, the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) has established.
This morning two workers, around thirty and forty years old, died in Belgrade after falling from great height. The ambulance received an emergency call at 9:42 a.m. and the two medical teams sent could only pronounce them dead at the scene.
Adoption of the unfavorable law on agency employment and its future regulation will only worsen the already poor labor relations.
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.