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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Nearly 350 million dinars provided for Solidarity Fund

Belgrade, 12 July 2006

Director of the Solidarity Fund Jablan Obradovic said today that in the first year of its operation the fund processed nearly 10,000 requests from 135 companies in bankruptcy and made 4,102 positive and 1,096 negative decisions.

Jablan Obradovic and Slobodan Lalovic

In a press conference Obradovic recalled that the Fund was established on July 8, 2005 and that it started solving requests as of September 1 last year.

The Fund operates as a public service protecting the rights of employees in cases when companies go into receivership and was established under the Labour Law which came into effect in March last year.

Workers whose claims were established in a valid decision prior to March 23, 2005 will also have the right to Fund’s assistance, Obradovic said.

The Fund’s assistance to workers whose companies went bankrupt refers to unpaid salaries for the last nine months before the bankruptcy procedure was launched in one company and will also cover payment of the damage due to unused annual leaves as a result of the employer’s omission, Obradovic explained.

He said that the assistance also refers to payment of retirement allowances to those who retired in the calendar year when the bankruptcy procedure was begun, compensation due to injury at work or professional disease, and also the right to receive payment for obligatory social insurance.

According to Obradovic, unpaid salaries will be paid according to minimum pay, so that the average sum payable for nine months per employee is 76,000 dinars, and payments for retirement which are being paid in the amount of three average salaries in the industrial sector are some 90,000 dinars.

Obradovic specified that currently 4,600 applications are being processed, made by employees who are waiting to realise their rights, and added that not even a single employee thus far has been deprived of his legal right.

He recalled that, regardless of five legal rights which can be realised by employees, they are mostly realising the right to salaries for paid leave – in 95% of the cases, and retirement allowances – in 5% of the cases.

Serbian Minister of Labour, Employment and Social Policy Slobodan Lalovic said that a sum of 350 million dinars has been secured this year for the Solidarity Fund, and that amount probably will not be enough.

Lalovic explained that necessary funds will be secured through additional rebalancing of the budget or from current budgetary reserves, adding that in 2005 a sum of 170 million dinars was spent for this fund.