“Professors at faculties who do nothing, except participate in blockades, will get potatoes. I think this part of their pay is being distributed tomorrow. They will get nothing. In millions of homes across Serbia there is now joy. People don’t want to be robbed by someone”, Vučić declared on Pink television on the eighteenth of March – a day after the Medical Faculty of the University of Belgrade went on strike.

We should distinguish between faculty blockades, protest work stoppages and strikes. A strike is the most radical form of work stoppage. The most populous faculty at Belgrade University, that of Medicine, decided a week ago, on 12 March, that they would go on strike on 17 March until student demands were met. “There will be no undergraduate or postgraduate teaching and exams, nor scientific activity. Treatment of patients is understood to continue”, Professor Boban Stojanović of this faculty told Insider on 12 March.

According to Mašina sources, the collective of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of Belgrade has been on strike since 9 February 2025, having previously entered a protest work stoppage on 21 January.

According to Radio 021, the collective of the Medical Faculty of the University of Novi Sad will also go on strike on 22 March, where this decision was also voted on 12 March.

Let us remember, all faculties of the University of Belgrade are under blockade – meaning that no classes or exams are taking place. Blockade/suspension implies that other activities, such as scientific research and the maintenance of teaching-scientific councils, continue. In the case of a protest stoppage, there is no teaching, and other activities are reduced to a minimum.

Ministry Demands Faculties Declare Whether They’re Working

According to Mašina sources, the Ministry of Education sent a letter to faculties on Monday, 17 March, requiring deans and university rectors to declare by noon on 18 March whether lectures and other forms of teaching are being conducted in the institution they lead. Professors from Belgrade University believe the Ministry intends to use this declaration as a basis for reducing professors’ salaries as mentioned by Vučić. (Incidentally, higher education teachers’ salaries don’t “arrive” today, but on 25 March.)

Mašina sources point to the inconsistency between “pre-Bologna” regulations and those that have been adopted and amended after the implementation of the Bologna reform in higher education, which makes it difficult to interpret with certainty the current legal position of university collectives.

Belgrade University’s Faculty of Mathematics Demands Investigation of Incident during “15 for 15” Protest

“We strongly condemn the deeply disturbing violent attack on gathered students and employees of our faculty at the ’15 for 15’ rally through the use of an as yet undetermined substance by unknown persons against peaceful protest participants during the fifteen-minute silence to pay respects. This violent act caused general panic and endangered the health and lives of people, which could have caused tragic consequences”, states the announcement on the Faculty of Mathematics’ social media profile.

The Faculty of Mathematics collective demands 1) an urgent and open investigation, discovery and punishment of those responsible for perpetrating and ordering this attack, and a clear guarantee of the right to peaceful assembly without fear of violence 2) fulfilment of the demands of Belgrade University Mathematics Faculty students 3) cessation of pressure measures against educational workers who are suspending classes.

ETF: “We believe that our very existence as a higher education institution has no meaning if we allow our students to be beaten and trampled”

According to Mašina sources, the collective of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at Belgrade University has been on strike since 9 February. The ETF had previously entered a protest work stoppage on 21 January until student demands were met, after a student was seriously injured by a car near the technical faculties block during a fifteen-minute silence.

“We, the teachers, associates and employees of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of Belgrade, express our deepest outrage at the growing media and physical violence against protesting students, which culminated in an attempted murder of a student from our university”, states the announcement from Electrical Engineering teachers at that time.

As they add: “We believe that any of our teaching and professional activities, and even our very existence as a higher education institution and as educational workers, have no meaning if we allow our students, our children, to be beaten and trampled, and if we do not firmly stand up for their protection”.

According to media reports, the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Faculty of Biology, and Faculty of Physics at the University of Belgrade are also in protest work stoppage.

Judiciary Strike

Employees in judicial bodies, courts, public prosecutor’s offices and institutes for the execution of criminal sanctions also went on a one-day strike on 18 March, according to an announcement by the Judicial Authority Union. The same union reminded that on 5 February they sent requests to the Ministry of Justice concerning the working conditions of judiciary employees, that is, their existential conditions.

Hunger Strike at RTV

We should also add that yesterday morning Darko Šper, representative of the Independence union in the provincial public service and president of the Branch Union of Culture, Media and Arts Independence, began a hunger strike due to the non-fulfilment of employee demands.

He was joined in this by the president of the RTV Professional Union Mijaz Čivović. As they announced, they will address the public every day at 12 o’clock and inform about the fulfilment of employee demands.

Mašina

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