Labour Movement

Online platform Learnship withholds pay from a thousand teachers

Learnship, a German corporate language-training provider based in Cologne is refusing to pay October and November wages amounting to over €500,000 for approximately 1,000 teachers. What’s more, employees say that the company is also failing to communicate with teachers about the situation, going as far as shutting down communication channels. The flagrant violation of labor rights has motivated employees to collectively organize, with some seeking out and joining unions.

Who is the worker of the 21st century?

Is the worker of the 21st century even a worker? Or have they become a number, a resource, a benefit user, an identification card? In the private sector the worker is no longer a political subject. They are reduced to a function within a system that teaches them to be lucky to have a job at all. The right to voice discontent? It exists today only as a clause in the employment contract, right next to the one about loyalty to the company.

“These Hands”: Artist Depicts the Workers’ Struggle at Recently Unionized Volkswagen Plant

Last week, a spark caught ablaze at Volkswagen’s Tennessee plant as workers voted to unionize. This victory comes after months of agitation by United Auto Worker (UAW) organizers, as well as retaliatory attacks on such activity by Volkswagen. A local artist, Tabitha Arnold, created a tapestry that visually shows how the workers fanned the flame and ignited a fire within the plant.

Safety and Health at Work for Platform Workers

No institution in Serbia keeps records of how many delivery workers are injured at work, as stated in the podcast “Delivery Couriers and Traffic Safety – The Price of Risk.” Nevertheless, it’s evident from media headlines, which are significantly fewer than the actual number of such incidents, that delivery workers often face accidents and mishaps while on duty.

Wolt discriminates against and mistreats several categories of workers simultaneously, according to Reljanović

Mario Reljanović, an expert in labor law, with no uncertainty tells Mašina that Wolt is the de-facto employer for its couriers. By limiting the ways some couriers can use the app, they are discriminating against foreign workers and lowering the potential earnings of all of its couriers.

Wolt introduced discriminatory rules for foreign workers in Serbia

Based on Mašina’s findings, part of the foreign workers who make deliveries through the Wolt app are denied the opportunity to see their actual earnings and to choose the deliveries they will work on. In this way, these workers are left with fixed wages, previously agreed on with the intermediary agency, which puts them in an unequal position compared to local delivery workers.

Glovo fined its couriers for “abusing” the application?

Last week, the “challenge” was terminated for part of the couriers people who work through the Glovo application. As a result, these workers are being deprived of realizing part of their earnings, which are based on completing a certain number of deliveries. Glovo claims it fired these workers because they “misused” the application – but what constitutes misuse and according to whom?

For dignified cultural employment: “The situation is unsustainable, the Ministry of Culture must urgently call for tenders and settle debts of independent artists”

At the press conference on the occasion of the campaign “For dignified cultural employment”, it was pointed out that it’s crucial to recognize the role of representative associations and organizations as relevant actors in the process of making decisions and providing legal remedies for the independent culture scene.

Croatia: the first union of workers in non-profit organizations in the region formed

The SKUPA trade union will fight for labour rights and better working conditions of those engaged in associations, trade unions, private and non-governmental foundations, non-profit cooperatives and political parties. According to Sandra Kasunić, one of the founders of the union and a member of its board, the idea to establish such a union was developed … Read more

What will the amendments to the Law on financial support for families with children bring: it could have been better

In early March 2021, the Ministry of Family Welfare and Demography initiated the long-awaited public debate on the Draft Law on Amendments to the Law on financial support for families with children. The Draft Law brought positive changes regarding the legal rights of mothers of children with disabilities, introduced penalties for institutions, managers and executors who make omissions in … Read more

Thousands of people supports freelancers. Negotiations with the Government announced for Monday

Protest of the Association of Internet Workers in Serbia

Online workers held a protest on Saturday in front of the National Assembly of Serbia. The authorities accepted invitation to negotiations, stated Miran Pogačar, president of the Association of Internet Workers (URI). Members of URI added that this is a small victory and that they will continue to fight.

Workers’ struggle during the pandemic

Striking similarities were revealed among ex-Yugoslav republics during this pandemic: the burden of the crisis was placed on the workers, who, although fragmented, organized resistance all across their shared former homeland, while at the same time facing the double threat of infection and possible termination.

Construction workers from India are protesting in front of the city administration headquarters in Kraljevo

Construction workers from India say that they haven’t received salaries for several months, that they are hungry and that they want to return to India, writes Kraljevo online. Some of them held messages such as: “No food, no water” and “Company not given proper food from last 15 days”. The City Administration in Kraljevo confirmed … Read more

When you find yourself in an unsustainable position out of the blue: the appeal of workers in culture to the authorities

Many organizations and arts associations belonging to the cultural sector have recently appealed to the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia, the Belgrade City Secretariat of Culture and other relevant institutions, as well as to the expert community, requesting urgent adoption of concrete measures of support for artists, cultural workers and the self-employed sector in culture. They face economic hardship caused by the state of emergency in Serbia, which was declared due to the corona virus pandemic.

Yielding to capital: Serbian Ministry of labour is covering for the employers whose workers died in 2019

In the year 2019, declared by the Government of Serbia to be the year of occupational safety and health, more employees died than in 2018, when as many as 53 workers lost their lives. Concurrently, the Ministry of Labour for the first time refused to provide the author of this piece with information concerning the employers who hired the passed away workers, as well as the information regarding the possible violations of labour regulations, although withholding such information contradicts the law on Access to Information of Public Importance, the former Commissioner Rodoljub Šabić pointed out for Mašina.