Almost 90 percent of employees in Serbia, whose rights were violated by their employers, said they never filed complaints to the relevant authorities – this is stated in the report on workers’ rights which was presented on Thursday.
The report, compiled by the Centre for the Development of Syndicalism in Labour Rights showed that 86 percent of employees under job contract never complained about the violation of their rights, just as 84 percent of day-labourers, 82 percent of part-time employees and 69 percent of employees with permanent job contracts.
The polled workers said they did not report violations of their rights because they feared they would lose their job, blamed themselves for what happened, or hoped that things would get better.
The report author Mario Reljanovic said that the poll results showed that “workers feel disempowered when it comes to their rights, are in a difficult position and are discouraged”.
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He added that 81 percent of the polled workers said the important thing is that they have a job under any conditions and that they believe that bad working conditions are something normal.
The report co-author Srecko Mihailovic notes that up to two thirds of the polled employees feel that workers’ rights are not respected while just 9% percent said their rights were being respected.
More than 70 percent of the surveyed employees said the authorities usually side with employers and just 17 percent said that the state protects workers rights’.
Asked which of their rights were violated the most, 45 percent said they were badly paid and 31 percent said they had no job contract. Another 28 percent said their wages were late and 25 percent said their health care and pension fund dues were not being paid regularly. 23 percent cited mobbing as the biggest problem, and 22 percent cited unpaid overtime and night work.
The survey encompassed 2,500 workers from five categories, each category numbering 500 workers, who were employed for an indefinite period of time, for a definite period of time, contractual workers, i.e. temporary workers, day-labourers, unregistered workers and unemployed job seekers.
Mihailovic also pointed out that 69 percent of day-labourers and unregistered workers complained that their labour rights were not respected.
Mihailovic noted that only between three and nine percent of the respondents said working rights were respected.
Also, according to the survey, between 65 to 71 percent of respondents answered that “the government usually protects employers more”.
Mihailovic also said that 52 percent of day-labourers had personal experience with violated rights, as did 39 percent of temporary workers and 36 percent of permanent workers.
(N1, 20.12.2018)
This post is also available in: Italiano