In an attempt to draw other workers to join the months-long teachers’ strike and thus expand the protest front to workplaces, student assemblies have on two occasions voted to call for a general strike. However, few are aware that workers in education, postal services, healthcare, media and numerous other sectors have long had this right effectively abolished.

Active and militant trade unions have been facing a dilemma for several months – whether to somehow join the protests or remain on the sidelines. In the first case, they risk introducing political divisions among their membership and drawing them into conflict with employers for demands whose fulfilment will not affect the balance of power in their workplaces. In the second case, they risk being absent as stakeholders amid major social mobilisation.

The Right to Strike Initiative provides a way out of this dilemma. It unites trade unions around the common problem of archaically defined and limited right to strike and opens space for further social cooperation between organised workers and students.

Where Is the sticking point??

The current Strike Law, also known as the “Šešelj Law,” was passed back in 1996. At that time, the state was still the main employer in many sectors, and with this law, it rendered strikes meaningless in all activities in which it held a monopoly. The Strike Law thus introduces the obligation to announce strikes, but also a “minimum work process” during the strike, which is not determined by the union but by the employer or founder for certain “public interest” activities.

This is why the Right to Strike initiative was recently launched. It currently consists of the Independent Union of Preschool Education of Serbia, the Belgrade High School Forum, the Solidarity Union of Serbian Post, the ASNS Union of Production and Technical Workers employed at the public media service RTS, the Education Union of Čačak, and the Workers’ Voice collective. The initiative has drafted a proposal to amend this law, which would enable workers to resolve one of the biggest issues a union can raise and will represent an enormous resource for its future struggles.

There is also a legal basis for the request to amend the Strike Law. First, laws can only provide for the fulfilment of rights, not their restriction. Second, according to Article 18 of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, human and minority rights are directly applicable, including all international conventions such as International Convention 87, which explicitly mentions the right to strike in Article 3.

The initiative identifies these problems as key:

1. Limited duration of warning strike – The current Strike Law limits warning strikes to a maximum of 60 minutes. Such a warning strike has only symbolic significance, and most often the hour-long warning strike is conducted during working hours on the same day, thereby making the strike meaningless. A longer warning strike would indicate the union’s determination and the seriousness of the situation. The Initiative’s proposal is to extend the warning strike to 24 hours, which would enable real pressure on the employer.

2. Inappropriate category of “public interest activities” – Many companies and institutions in the public sector are classified in this category, which means that strikes in them can be limited or prevented under the pretext of protecting the public interest. The European Committee of Social Rights already re-examined the category of “activities of public importance” in 2014-2017 and placed on Serbia the burden of proving why certain sectors are still considered activities of public importance. The Initiative proposes to abolish this category and that the right to strike remain limited only in activities where the interruption of work processes would directly threaten the health, safety and lives of people, as defined by the International Labour Organisation. This would include activities such as healthcare, air traffic control, and electricity supply.

3. Abuse of the minimum work process – Unions face employers, especially in state enterprises, misusing this provision to make any strike attempt meaningless. For example, in education, the minimum work process means shortened classes of 30 minutes, while at RTS during a strike, almost all services are required to work, including the archive and canteen. The unions are demanding participation in defining the minimum work process so that it is used only in necessary cases.

Theory and Practice of Strike Today

Preschool institutions, whose founders are local governments, are obliged to make decisions on the minimum work process. These decisions have not been made at all in all municipalities except four in Serbia, thus violating the Labour Law. On the other hand, the decisions that have been made imply that the minimum work process means that during a strike, all kindergartens must remain open and reception, care and health protection of children are carried out in them, but educational work is not carried out. This directly endangers the safety of children.

“It is important to our founders that all doors are open, but how children are cared for, you can see for yourselves,” said Bosiljka Jovanović, president of the Independent Union of Preschool Education at the press conference for the “Right to Strike” Initiative. Additionally, she adds, this minimum work process also abolishes the right to strike for as many as 30% of employees in preschool institutions who do not perform educational work. The Preschool Education Union has already managed to achieve in thirty municipalities that in case of a strike, kindergarten capacities are reduced to 30% of operating institutions and 30% of working educators. However, there remain problems in implementation, and even where there are good decisions on the minimum work process, directors avoid implementing them. It is precisely because of this that the union has limited manoeuvring space in the fight for better working conditions.

Katarina Šćepanović from the Belgrade High School Forum and the Forum of Schools of Serbia in formation points to the difference between the current work stoppage in schools, which they understand as an act of civil disobedience, and a strike that today implies a minimum work process of 30 minutes of teaching, instead of the standard 45. She stated that educators reluctantly enter strikes because they are aware that the state does not take such a legal strike seriously, and that it is completely ineffective.

Furthermore, Šćepanović points out that this imposed right to strike has had profound consequences: “These meaningless strikes have led to trust in unions being eroded because ineffective struggle means nullifying the fight for our rights and our dignity.”

Representatives of all unions gathered around the Initiative emphasise the importance of changing the Strike Law. Ivica Stojković from the ASNS Union of Production and Technical Workers emphasises that in his full forty years of service, Radio-Television Serbia has never been on strike. As he points out, even if a strike at RTS were organised, with the current minimum work process, the average programme viewer would not notice anything. Union representatives warn that if the law is not changed, more and more workers will be forced to seek alternative forms of struggle, including informal gatherings and spontaneous work stoppages.

The Right to Strike Initiative plans to submit concrete amendments to the law through a People’s Initiative to the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, for which it is necessary to collect 30,000 signatures. In addition, it will send requests to all parliamentary groups in the Assembly. On the other hand, for sectors whose employer is the local government, the Initiative will launch actions to abolish the minimum work process regulations that effectively prevent strikes at the local level.

One of the key examples of local mobilisation is the support of more than five thousand, or a large majority, of parents whose children attend kindergartens in Palilula municipality. Such support shows that the fight for this right is not and does not have to be isolated.

“Changing the law would give us back what belongs to us, and we could continue to fight for everything we think is important,” Šćepanović insists. Unions gathered around the initiative also invite unions from other sectors whose right to strike is threatened by the current law to join them. They can do this by contacting the Workers’ Voicecollective.