What is offered by proposed amendments to Labor Law?

BELGRADE – The draft amendments to the Serbian Labour Law, which will be presented before the members of the Serbian parliament on Tuesday and whose adoption is being opposed to by representative trade unions, provide that employees’ right to seniority-based financial compensation of 0.4 percent per year of service can only be exercised with their current employer.

Under the law currently in force, seniority is transferable from one employer to another, which means that employees are entitled to exercise that right calculating in their total years of service, while under the proposed amendments, an employee accrues seniority commensurate only with their tenure of employment with their current employer.

According to the draft amendments to the Labor Law, posted on the website of the Serbian parliament, the situation where an employee is dismissed as redundant predicts a payment of a minimum of one third of earnings for each completed year of service with the current employer.

A severance package at retirement would no longer amount to three, but rather two average salaries of an employee.

The draft amendments stipulate that employees shall be entitled to a 26 percent financial compensation for night work, but no compensation for shift work.

Also proposed is that contracts for employment for a specified period of time can only be signed for up to two years instead of up to one year as before.

Under the proposed amendments, the employee shall lose the right to compensation for unused vacation time unless they are laid off. In the case of termination of employment when an employee had not used all or part of their vacation, they are entitled to receive a financial compensation in the amount of the...

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