Serbia to Consult Bosses and Unions on Labour Law

The Serbian Labour Ministry has called for the Social-Economic Council, which is made up of representatives of employers, unions and government, to meet next week in order to discuss the draft labour law, a ministry source told BIRN. 

This will come instead of a public discussion on the long-awaited legislation before it can be sent for adoption by parliament in July.

Serbian Labour Minister Aleksandar Vulin on Wednesday urged the quick adoption of the new law, but said: "We will wait until the last second to achieve a consensus among stakeholders."

The stakeholders – the Serbian employers' union, trade unions and representatives of the government - were all part of a working group tasked with drafting the law.

However, a dispute remains over collective agreements, the contracts between management and unions that regulates workers' and employers' duties, terms and conditions in the workplace.

Trade unions want collective agreements to be extended to all workplaces in Serbia, because according to the draft legislation, it will only apply to those run by members of the Union of Employers, which is about five per cent of the total number of employers in the country, according to the trade unions.

Nebojsa Atanackovic, the head of the Union of Employers, told BIRN however that the draft law has kept some relics of Yugoslav communist labour legislation which favoured workers over employers.

"Instead of 161 working hours a month, we [employers] are paying for 174 as it includes lunch breaks," Atanackovic complained.

"If we do not change this, we will have to change the law again on our way to the EU because none of the EU countries has this [paid lunch breaks]," he added.

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