In the chains of wild capitalism

The privatisaon has launched a new class of owners onto surface, those who have bought the former socially owned enterprises. Most of them are familiar only with the law of force and contempt positive laws. Weak and often too friendly inspection and notoriously slow justice, low awareness of the employed and their poverty that creates slave like dependence due to one form of the wild capitalism is only aggravating such situation.

And while the term human rights has so to speak entered all homes so that even children know it, worker's and social rights are considered something else, as if they were not part of the human rights, so that the worker can have political rights at the elections, but no rights at his work post. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, that Serbia took over as an heir of the SFRJ, who ratified this document, bridges this artificial separation. The European Union decree of 1996 belongs to this corpus as

well, as one of the key documents of the European Council. This document is ratified by the member states upon joining the EC. Even though Serbia has been its member for a long time, it has not ratified the European Social Decree that would be important link in the improvement of economic and social rights in our country. There are several investments dealing with improvement and protection of those rights in Serbia. They are Agency for Peaceful Labor Disputes Resolution, Ministry of Labor and Social Policy with the Department of Labor and Directorate for work safety and health, Ministry of Justice, unions, courts and municipal legal help. Vera Božic-Trefalt from the Directorate for work safety and health says that EU has nineteen decrees that we have to transfer into our health care. The Law on labor safety from 2005 is brought into line with the EU regulations, but the EU Commission is going to give its final
		Innenansicht des Felsendoms. Die Mosaikmotive zeigen deutlich hellenistischen und sasanidischen Einfluß

estimates, however only after the Agreement for Joining the EU has been ratified. However, no one denies that despite of the regulation and institutions the field of labor is not regulated and poses a difficult terrain for the human survival. The employers do not respect human life, and for them a worker with helmet and gloves is a cost, let alone other rights. The labor inspection is entirely separate story. There are only 308 inspectors for as many as 28 counties. From unions we hear that inspectors are not immune to corruption and "conniving" at the employers. Vera Božic-Trefalt points out that last year there were three serious accusations at the expense of inspectors and that there were more than two hundred telephone complaints. Ina addition, when an inspection presses the charges very limited number is processed, says Vera Božic-Trefalt. Asked how many managers end up in prison due to the suffering of their employees she replies: "If you get an answer on that one from those responsible, I'll buy you a lunch ".

According to the data from the Center for democracy, every seven minutes in Serbia one worker is injured, each week there is a death case at work, and almost thousand workers became disabled due to the work injuries. According to the same research, Serbia is very much behind the European countries when the work safety conditions perception is concerned. Economic and social issues are realized in the state-business-citizens triangle. What has been going on in this Bermuda's triangle during the last eight transition years, we learned at the Anticorruption Council. The Council received thousands of workers due to poor privatization and inhumane treatment of workers and property by the new employer. We should remember the case of "Šinvoz", "Jugoremedija" and its now former owner Jovica Stefanovic Nini, the sugar plants bought by Miodrag Kostic, oil refineries of Predrag Rankovic Peconi. The documents and statements made by employees give testimonies on legal horror created by these new wealthy men - from reallocation of workers so that they had to travel even hundred kilometers to their work and back, to hiring private police for the factory. Long mistreatment not only at work but in state institutions even, made people desperate so that in "Šinvoz" only five workers died or killed themselves, while many people got ill.
There is a Socio-economic council as one of the institutions for counseling between the state, employers and union, but this is a paper institution used for taking photos of and making propaganda. At the moment we are at a dead end, says Sidonija Vukotic from the independent Union, being a victim of "shooting" herself, because allegedly she turned in some important documents of "Investimport" to DOS, due to which she has been suing her former company for seven and a half years now. She reminds us that the General Collective Contract has been signed, but it is valid for the members of the Union of Employers and the labor unions. However, this is only one tenth of the employers, Misa Ivanis from the Independence union points out, who also gave us an astonishing piece of data that the Business Registers Agency refused to give the list of enterprises members of the Union of Employers, so that these ten percent of firms are- a secret. Both Vukoticeva and Ivaniš point out that the Minister of Labour Rasim Ljajic should sign a regulation on "expanded action" (of the General Collective Contract), which means that it will include all employers and enterprises.
Maybe things are going to improve after this signing, so that workers would free themselves from fear.