A group of workers made redundant by the Loznica-based Italian company, Valy doo, staged a protest in front of the factory in connection with what they claimed was an unclear dismissal process. One of the workers, who wished to remain anonymous, said that harassment of workers was the order of the day, that managers close to the factory director often insulted the workers, and that there had been ‘physical violence against some of them’.
She also explained that workers were often called names and insulted and that physical force was used against some. The worker explained that an alleged incident occurred during the night shift in the bathroom, where a manager allegedly beat up a worker and then resigned. According to her, Valy gave its employees a 600-dinar-lunch allowance a month (which is about 30 dinars per day) and that none of the workers had a written job contract with the company stating how many years they worked for the company.
“Both us and those employees who remained at work have been denied basic rights. We kept quiet because of our families and worked just to survive. They have made single mothers and widows redundant. Now they are firing us with a severance pay that is enough to cover only two months,” the anonymous worker says.
Another worker and single mother of two, Suzana Cvejić, said that in recent years, she had been bullied by one of the bosses, especially after having a miscarriage. Suzana said that her boss asked her to hand over her passport so that she could not travel during her sick leave, but also that people from the company often came to her house to check whether she was really on sick leave.
Zeljko Veselinovic, president of the Sloga trade union, said that the dismissal process contains no adequate social measures, which every employer should have. “Unfortunately, the Valy Company did not care about it and left a huge number of workers, mainly women, stranded,” he added.
A total of 62 workers from Valy’s factory in Loznica have been dismissed, but the layoffs were not carried out in a transparent manner, i.e. the criteria on the basis of which the redundancies were made are dubious. The dismissed workers suspect that they were laid off because they used their sick leave.
(Nova, 11.11.2021)
This post is also available in: Italiano