One of the latest scandals in Serbia is the day-to-day toppling of workers’ rights in South Korean company JURA, which has its factory in the city of Leskovac. After trying many times to make contacts with the management and alarm the Labour Inspection, CATUS had to turn to the COVID-19 Crisis Headquarters. President Orbovic informed them that severe restrictions imposed on all territory of Serbia and almost entire population obviously had no impact on JURA directors, who insisted that all workers had to keep on working and accept being transferred from/to their homes in overcrowded buses and without any personal protection. At the same time the workers were blackmailed in the worst possible way, as they could choose between working regularly with a 40 euro weekly bonus or being dismissed!
Against the anti-COVID-19 regulation in force, the company’s management did not introduce any protective measures at production lines, nor prevented workers from coming into close contact with each other. There have already been eight corona cases among them, but the fact that in total there are 2,800 employees provokes the fear that soon we could witness a local pandemic. One more aggravating circumstance for the company is the fact that its production (spare parts) can no way be labelled as an “essential”, which shows that their only motivation is the profit. Workers’ refusal to enter the factory was dealt with by a typical “take it or leave it” proposal, which put them before a choice: to stay (on employers’ conditions) or “freely” depart (leaving behind them their jobs and wages). This is only one of the poisonous fruits of the government’s policy which aimed to attract foreign capital by making publicity of Serbia as a country with cheapest labour in the region, abundance of unemployed workers and liberal Labour Law. There were international speculators who quickly understood the message and rushed to invest in capitalists’ Promised Land, JURA group being one of them. The results were low-quality and insecure jobs, poor wages and lack of any serious respect for labour rights. The unions have never been welcome there and any attempt to establish them lead to mobbing and dismissals. Is it possible that community has lost all control over its future and depends on the mercy of people who have no intention to improve public good but only to extract extra-profits? Is the moment approaching when the people will stand up against such authoritarian outlaws (because they are outlaws violating constantly the law) and their Serbian executors and give them a lesson of justice? Probably it is, because after the end of the epidemic nothing will be the same.
