A new Draft Law on Agency Employment appeared, where the work through agencies will be limited to 24 months, and in this way, employees will be able to pay salaries, sick leave, vacation, meal allowance, transportation. A worker through an agency will have the right to apply for a job with that employer and will not have to pay a percentage to the agency as it is now.

Currently, in Serbia, there are about 100,000 people working for more than 100 agencies and dealing with temporary employment, which is not regulated by any law.

Workers hired through their own agency do not legally have the right to annual leave and sick leave, but also for meal allowance and transportation fees, and all that is regulated with the employer just internally. Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Affairs, three years ago, formed a working group to make the Law that will regulate this kind of employment. And to give workers with own agencies equal rights as those who, according to the Labor Law (“Official Gazette of RS” No. 24/2005, 61/2005, 54/2009, 32/2013, 75/2014, 13/2017 – decisions of the US, 113/2017 and 95/2018 – authentic interpretation) work on a certain or indefinite basis with the employer.

If the Draft Law on Agency Employment will be adopted, workers will be able to work on a definite and indefinite basis, will establish employment in the agency, and will not be employed by temporary contracts and occasional jobs, as it is now. Work through agencies will, as before, be limited to 24 months, and the law will enable employees in this way to pay salaries, sick leave, vacation allowance, a meal allowance, transportation.

In addition, a worker through an agency will be eligible to apply for a job with that employer and will not have to pay a percentage to the agency as it is now. – says Melanija Petač, a member of the working group of the Association of Independent Trade Unions of Serbia.

A worker who has his own agency will receive wages and is entitled to paid annual leave, paid overtime, and will be protected at work.

On the other hand, Employers want to not have a limit on the number of employees who can work in one company through own agency, while the goal of the Union of Independent Trade Unions of Serbia is that number to be 10-20 % percent, without creating the safety of workers who are employed through the agency and to protect workers who work with that employer indefinitely.

This version of the law appeared at the end of the public hearing in front of the working group, and it was completely different from the one in which they took part and they made a series of remarks. So it’s still uncertain when this law will come into force.

From the demands of the Union, only one was adopted, and the subsidiary responsibility is replaced by solidarity. This only accepted union proposal means that if the employee decides to sue the employment agency, at the same time, the same liability can be claimed by the employer, which was not envisaged by the Draft, proposed by the Working Group of the Ministry of Labor.