The trade union will fight to ensure that foreign workers have the best possible labor and legal status in Serbia, because by doing so we are also helping employees from our own country, said the president of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia, Zoran Mihajlović.
“By advocating for better rights and wages, better working and living conditions, and the sanctioning of violations that employers frequently commit against these workers, we are also fighting for a better status of domestic workers,” Mihajlović said.
Speaking at the conference “Social Dialogue for Fair Labor Migration: Towards Inclusive and Fair Labor Markets,” organized by the Confederation together with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, he pointed out that the ultimate benefits of this will go to the state, as the budget will be fuller due to the reduction of undeclared work, and consequently to the economy as well.
Mihajlović warned about a “flood” of foreign workers in our country, who are being brought in in an unplanned manner, without strategy, and who mostly work unregistered with very questionable living and working conditions in Serbia.
In addition, he added, they accept low wages and thus reduce them for domestic workers as well, which leads to our people moving abroad and a shortage of skilled labor, which ultimately is not good for our economy.
However, the Confederation will in order to get closer to foreign workers, is considering to open information centers in four major cities (Belgrade, Niš, Novi Sad, and Kragujevac), where they will be informed about their labor rights.
According to Dominique John, head of the Advisory Network of the German Trade Union Confederation – Faire Mobilität, in Germany there is a real “Eldorado” when it comes to migrant workers from Eastern Europe, with the difference that their situation and rights are systematically taken care of by trade unions in that country. Danica Šantić, PhD, from the Faculty of Geography in Belgrade pointed out that Serbia’s population was steadily declining, the average age was 44, and from a demographic perspective and due to the poor age structure, foreign labor was necessary.
“I hope that the statement of the German writer that ‘Germany called for workers and received people’ will become a motto in the rest of Europe and the world,” Šantić has said, stressing that the essence is that migration represents development for every country, including Serbia.
Although, according to the Assistant Minister in the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs, Zoran Martinović, the labor and legal status of foreign workers is the same as that of domestic workers, the rights of both groups are violated by the employer, “but the state is working to sanction them.”
“The greatest responsibility lies with employers and intermediary agencies to provide adequate working conditions, but the state also does not shy away from its obligations of control and sanctioning abuses,” Martinović said, noting that many economic activities in the country would not be carried out without foreign workers. The President of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of the City of Belgrade, Dragan Todorović, said that despite the fact that the state did not react and did not have the capacity to solve the problems faced by foreign workers, the union would continue to exert constant pressure on state authorities to prevent abuses.
Emphasizing that “as many as 50 percent of foreign workers did not enjoy their rights,” Todorović proposed creating a register of employers who hire foreigners, so that the union could more easily make contact and monitor employers’ behavior toward them. The Assistant Director in the Sector for Strategic Analysis, Services and Internationalization of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, Bojan Stanić, agreed that labor cost is the decisive factor in hiring foreign workers, but also pointed out that employers should take into account the national priority, which is the overall progress of society.
The Head of the Department for Developing Relations with Employers at the National Employment Service, Darko Marjanović, said that the level of minimum wage was acceptable to workers from less developed countries, which is used by employers in Serbia, who also point to a very low percentage (1–2 percent) of sick leave among foreign workers, compared to domestic workers, whose rate is much higher.
He emphasized that every employer who wanted to hire a foreign worker was first offered domestic labor by the National Employment Service, but the decisive factor was the lower labor cost, which citizens from the third countries were willing to accept.
The General Director of the “Hilton” hotel in Belgrade, Aleksandar Vasilijević, said that hoteliers in Serbia did not employ foreign workers because they wanted to, but because they were forced to due to the shortage of domestic staff.
He pointed out that foreign workers were not cheaper, but significantly more expensive than domestic workers because they paid for their accommodation and plane tickets, adding that out of a total of 245 employees in the hotel, 43 were foreigners, and none of them earned below the minimum wage.
