Seven years ago, a company from Belgrade named after a mythical bird that is born from the ashes, had three employees: the boss, a man and a girl who just got married and pregnant.
The boss decided one day to take a loan from a bank, a hefty sum, and instead of investing it into the development of the company, he packed his things up and disappeared.
The company stopped working the next day, and two workers were left without pension, social security and health care (they were not paid) and without possibility to quit or get fired and move to Bureau for Employment because there was no one to sign the papers.
The man from the beginning of the story found his way easily – he quickly found a job (although worse) in another company, and thus saved himself from the company that existed only on paper and held its workers prisoners.
On the other hand, the pregnant girl had a big problem because in Serbia nobody wants to employ a pregnant woman. She could not go to the doctor because she had no health care, as the company in which she was still employed (at least on paper) had not paid the fees for health care for several months, and the only exit from the situation was to somehow move to the Bureau for Employment.
At the time in Serbia, all who were registered at the Bureau for Employment as unemployed had health care, as it was paid by the state. However, to register at the Bureau and in that way win the right to health care, she first had to somehow legally “break” from the company.
On the advice of a lawyer, she filed a lawsuit to the District Prosecutor’s Office, Labour Inspectorate, initiated the process in the Tax Administration against the company with the aim for the state to recognize her problem and allow her to quit in the company in which there is no one to sign the papers.
She even managed to find the fugitive boss who was hiding in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but alas, the prosecution said that her boss cannot be arrested, questioned or prosecuted until he returns to Serbia, under the condition to do so before the case gets old. The Labour Inspectorate understood what was going on – and she never heard from them again. The similar thing happened with the Tax Administration.
The whole pregnancy passed in the hope that the state would do something about her case, however the solution was not in sight, and as it will turn out, the case will never be finished.
At the same time, the then minister in the Government of Serbia, Mladjan Dinkic, wanting to get rid of the high percent of unemployed, came up with the idea to advertise in all media in Serbia programs for “converting” unemployed to employed by convincing them to employ themselves by opening their own business.
The day of the child birth approached quickly, pregnant woman without health care, the state is not interested in her problem, and the only solution she now saw was what Mr. Dinkic advertised: to open her own company, pay herself health care and waits for the birth of her child without worries.
She did so. She opened a web agency and finally managed to break away from the dead company for which she was legally bound.
Mission Impossible
The birth of her child went well, and now a mother, she managed to find the first job after several months since the opening of the agency. With the help of her husband, she managed to impose herself with price and offered services as a company that will develop a new website for a Japanese company in Belgrade.
Unlike other countries, in Serbia it is practically impossible to work for a company unless you have a registered company, because costs of royalties for freelance and similar contracts between the company and a person are ridiculously high, as for the company hiring a freelancer and a freelancer himself, and thus completely unprofitable for both parties.
The job with the Japanese company was worth exactly the amount she had already paid out of her own pocket to the state of Serbia to have health care – 1,000 euros. With no experience on business conditions in Serbia, the success encouraged her that she can maybe succeed, as is the case with many other mothers in the vast majority of countries in the world.
However, to cut a very long story short, she quickly realized that in Serbia 99 percent of jobs are getting those who are “eligible” – members of the political party in power, relatives, family. The offered price or the quality of the work are irrelevant.
For those 1 percent of, otherwise judging by the value unimportant jobs, competed a huge population of people who followed her footsteps and risked to leave the Bureau to open their own company.
Her company went down after a year. Only debts to the state remained, because the prescribed taxes were 10 times higher than what she was able to earn. She cursed the “yellows” (Democratic Party) who were at the time in power, for everything that had happened to her.
But, if it’s any consolation, she could now register at the Bureau.
Source; in News
