Working time

BELGRADE - The members of the Social Economic Council of Serbia have not come to an agreement on the minimum price of labour for next year, Labour Minister Aleksandar Vulin said on Sunday.

"It means that the government will decide on it at one of its upcoming meetings," he told reporters after a meeting of the council.

Bulgarians who work and can determine their working hours are around 24 000 and make up around 1% of the labour force, the National Statistics Institute (NSI) reported.

People who have a fixed start and end of the working day are around 2.4 Million. People with flexible working time with a certain number of days per week, month or another period of time are close to 50 000.

BELGRADE - Serbian trade unions held a protest in downtown Belgrade on Thursday against the bill of amendments to the labour law and the law on pension and disability insurance, which the government filed to the parliament for adoption on urgent procedure.

BELGRADE – Serbia’s Labor Minister Aleksandar Vulin said Tuesday that parts of the proposed amendments to the Labor Law were increasing workers’ rights, facilitating doing business and creating conditions for the inflow of investment.

BELGRADE - Representatives of the two most numerous trade unions from restructuring companies filed to the Serbian parliament the requests for withdrawal of proposed amendments to the labour law and law on pension and disability insurance.

BELGRADE - The Serbian parliament will discuss at its Tuesday session the bill of amendments to the labour law which the government adopted on Saturday despite the pressures and protests of trade unions.

BELGRADE - Serbian government adopted on Saturday the draft laws on labor and pension and disability insurance, and Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said that the government set a new and modern labor law that favors the young and good workers, adding that Serbia has finally started the reform process.

"I have asked that we implement a difficult programme, one could hardly imagine in these circumstances, reduction of pensions of minimum 20 per cent, cut of public sector salaries for 15 per cent, layoffs for 160,000 workers and increase of the electricity price for 30 per cent," Krstic said.

 Pilot measure starts this weekend in 10 parts of the country, with strikes, protests and confusion expected

By Dimitra Manifava

BELGRADE - The leaders of the two largest uniond associations in Serbia, United Trade Unions Independence and Confederation of Autonomus Trade Unions of Serbia (SSSS), Branislav Canak and Ljubisav Orbovic, said on Friday they would not continue the talks with the government on proposed amendments to the labour law, and they announced protests.