After the recent change in the practice of the authorities with respect to protection offered to pregnant definite term employees from having their employment terminated, which gained much media attention and resulted in significant public reaction, the Serbian Parliament has adopted the Law on Amendments of the Labour Law at the beginning of April 2013.

The amendments to the Law, which came into force on 16 April 2013, introduce important changes with respect to the rights of pregnant employees, as well as for employees on maternity leave, childcare leave and special childcare leave:

• The definite term employment of such categories of employees that expire during the course of a pregnancy, or over the course of the applicable leave, is extended until the end of the leave.

  
  

• It is explicitly stated that a resolution terminating employment is null and void not only where the employer knew, at the moment of the termination of the employment contract that the employee was pregnant, or was on maternity/childcare/special childcare leave, but also where an employee informs the employer, within a 30 day period following an official employment termination notification, that she is pregnant, or of the fact that he/she is using one of the above types of leave, and submits relevant proof thereof (certificate from a physician or other relevant authority).

  
  

• An employer is obliged to provide an employee that has returned to the workplace within 12 months of giving birth and who works for 6 or more hours daily, a 90 minutes break during working hours (to enable breastfeeding), or a decrease of working hours equivalent to the same duration. The employee is entitled, during the stated break/decrease of working hours, to a salary compensation amounting to her basic salary increased by years of service.

The Law does not specify whether the employee is entitled to a regular break during working hours (in line with the general provisions of the Labour Law) on top of the above mentioned break/decrease in working hours.

Minimum salary level

The Serbian Government enacted, at the beginning of April 2013, a Decision on the level of the minimum salary for the period March – December 2013¹. The minimum salary amount is the same as the previously valid amount (RSD 115 net per working hour). The Government reached the stated decision after the Socio-Economic Council of the Republic of Serbia failed to determine an amount within the given deadline.

Amendments to the Law on the Professional Rehabilitation and Employment of Disabled Individuals

The Parliament of the Republic of Serbia adopted, the Law on Amendments of the Law on Professional Rehabilitation and Employment of Disable Individuals², which came into force on 16 April 2013.

Please find below the most important new features of the Law:

• An employer that fails to employ an adequate number of disabled individuals is obliged to pay 50% of the average salary in Serbia as set under the most recent published data, for each disabled individual that ought to have been employed but that wasn’t.

  This replaces the former provisions of the Law regulating alternative options to the employment of disabled individuals (by participating in the financing of disabled individuals’ salaries in a company for professional rehabilitation and the employment of disabled individuals), as well as the payment of a penalty (triple the minimum salary, for each disabled individual that is not employed) where the obligation to employ disabled people was not met. 

• An employer that employs a disabled person for an indefinite term, where that disabled person doesn’t have employment experience, is entitled to have the employee’s salary subsidised for 12 months, amounting to 75% of total salary costs (however this ‘subsidy’ cannot exceed the minimum salary). To date, this subsidy has been the same amount as the minimum salary.