The coronavirus virus pandemic is changing the scope of work worldwide, and the new law on flexible forms of work, announced in Serbia, should follow the global trend and take into account that regulations last at least a decade or two, it was said at the webinar on new forms of work.
The online labor index showed that Serbia is the first in the world in terms of the number of freelancers per capita, and in the eleventh place in terms of the total number, says Jelena Zarkovic, a professor at the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade.
He states that freelancers belong more to the group of the self-employed, and that the fact that they are not recognizable in the laws, along with problems related to tax collection, means that they initially have smaller labor rights.
At the webinar within the project “Economic talks: New forms of employment, a new chance or a new precariat (employment in which there is no security)?” organized by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Zarkovic said that freelancers are not defined even through the laws of many EU member states, including Denmark and France.
She pointed out the large range in their salaries, but also the need to think about what will happen to those people, as well as to the platform workers, when they retire.
Miran Pogacar from the Association of Online Workers says that the problem of freelancers is not something that is just a current problem.
“We are a new precariat, but we are different from other forms of work, such as seasonal work that has existed for decades. We have people who work through platforms, these are new forms of work, there is no possibility of contact with the employer,” says Pogacar.
Regarding the problems related to the collection of taxes for freelancers, due to which the association protested on several occasions, Pogacar said that the association advocates that the collection of taxes start from October 2020, and not non-payment of taxes.
“We only had obligations that they put on us, and the state has not done anything in the last 10 and 15 years in order to regulate that area of work,” said Pogacar.
He stated that freelancers earn between 500 and 600 euros gross per month on average, and that some can earn 2,000 and 3,000 euros.
NALED Executive Director Violeta Jovanovic said that the Labor Law was last amended in 2014, and that from that moment until today, the labor market has changed greatly even before the pandemic.
She stated that in the meantime, new non-standard forms of work have appeared, in addition to those that functioned earlier, such as seasonal jobs.
She pointed out the positive results of the law on the registration of seasonal workers in agriculture, who previously worked without any rights for decades and were invisible to the system.
She stated that before the reform, about 3,000 workers were registered annually, and that in the three years since the adoption of the law on registration of seasonal workers in agriculture, about 50,000 people were introduced into the system, and that this reform can be a pattern for some other sectors.
Unions are adjusting
Dusko Vukovic from the Federation of Independent Trade Unions says that freelancers and new forms of work engagement and labor relations influence the union to adapt to new circumstances.
“We are close to creating a branch union, which will include freelancers and all those who do not work in classic activities and branches,” said Vukovic.
He pointed out the trend of reducing workers’ rights and reducing the number of classic employment contracts, primarily indefinite employment contracts.
“We define precariat as classic exploitation, work without employment, work without a written contract,” says Vukovic.
He stated that in Serbia and in the world, there is talk only about flexibility, but not about “flexicurity” for workers in case of job loss until a new engagement is found, Kamatica reports.
