Illegal layoffs at Lear’s plant in Novi Sad, which produces cables for the automotive industry, have been going on for two weeks now, and the workers are being forced to sign consensual termination of their job contracts.
According to the Nezavisnost trade union, a total of 260 workers were forced to sign the job termination agreement – the Vojvodina Research and Analysis Centre (VOICE) reports.
President of the Association of Industry, Energy and Mining Trade Unions ‘Nezavisnost’, Milorad Panovic told VOICE that the job terminations at Lear were being done against the relevant regulation.
Want to open a company in Serbia? Click here!
“There is no such kind of agreement that would terminate job contract in this way in our law, where Lear would give the workers who have been working for them less than six months 250 euro, and those who have been working over six months 500 euro in compensation. The company should have a worker surplus programme in place which they don’t. We would like to advise the workers not to sign these agreements. Although we are being told by Lear’s management that there is no pressure, we think otherwise,” Panovic adds.
VOICE has also published the statements from two Lear workers, who claim that their salaries are quite low and that the working conditions at the company are very difficult.
“The only reason for these layoffs I can think of is that Lear is getting state subsidies for new workers, so they have to release the old ones”, one employee said.
In the last two years, the state and Novi Sad authorities have provided 57 million euro worth of financial assistance to this American company relating to the construction of the production plant, land donation, wage subsidies, lending as such – the VOICE has said.
The article adds that Lear is yet to comment on these allegations.
(Novi Magazin, 03.12.2018)
http://www.novimagazin.rs/ekonomija/voice-lir-nezakonito-otpusta-radnike
This post is also available in: Italiano