Sloga Union – Human Dignity Must Not Depend on a Passport

The United Trade Unions of Serbia "Sloga"

The United Trade Unions of Serbia “Sloga” said on July 21 that human dignity should never depend on a passport and that, although still unofficial, the announcement that tens of thousands of Ghanaian workers would be brought into Serbia, revealed much deeper social issues.

“Public reactions to these reports show that prejudice against foreigners still exists, and that the absence of a serious labor policy is being masked by spreading fear and division,” the Union said in a press release, adding that “it’s astonishing how quickly part of the public responds with panic and hysteria when foreign workers are mentioned, yet no one asks why our people have been leaving for years to take jobs abroad that no one here will do or can afford to pay for.”

The “Sloga” leader, Zeljko Veselinovic, underlined that he was not against bringing in foreign workers, especially to the sectors lacking local labor force, but suggested that the rules for employing them had to be clear and their protection guaranteed. He recalled the conditions under which Vietnamese workers were employed at the Linglong factory in Zrenjanin or in the mines in Bor.  “If we forget that, we will lose both our face, and our state. Such practices must never happen again. What we wouldn’t tolerate for our own workers abroad, we must not allow to happen to anyone here,” Veselinovic said.

The opposition People’s Movement of Serbia released a statement on July 21 opposing the issuance of a large number of work permits for foreign workers, arguing that cheap labor benefits only foreign investors and tycoons tied to the regime.

“In a country where young people are leaving en masse, villages are disappearing, and domestic labor is marginalized and undervalued, the government chooses to import cheap labor to serve foreign investors and regime-connected tycoons, while the people of Serbia are becoming surplus in their own country. The people did not give Aleksandar Vucic a mandate to change the ethnic and labor structure of the country behind their backs,” said the party led by Miroslav Aleksic, its sole MP in the national parliament.