In december 2019 the postal workers striked because of low wages and poor living conditions, they demand to increase their wages up to the minimum average wage and to employ more workers. It was the biggest strike from post workers in Serbia. The main postal distributeve centres in Serbia, Belgrade, Novi Sad and Niš were blocked, also in the distributive centre in Zemun a few dozen workers of Post Serbia joined the strike.
According to the media around 8.000 out of 15.000 workers joined the strike. The lowest amounts paid to the employees at the end of a month vary between 20.000 dinars (170 Euros, in case they are hired as seasonal workers) and 40,000 dinars (340 Euros, providing they have a full-time contract). The demand of the workers on strike is a sallary of 54,000 dinars (458 Euros). First the management tried to stop the strike by grant a 10% increase to all - which would be nothing for those earning less and a lot for those already earning much. The postal wokers have wages below the national average.
Two hundred workers were suspended from the company, because they attended the strike. That means these workers will have to live with only 1/3 of their salary or less, 7,000 to 9,000 dinars (59 to 76 Euros) per month! And it is a try to end the strike, but the workers said “suspensions will not stop them”. "We were never this united and we must succeed", was the mood among the strikers.
The agreement after the 9th day of strike was better than the first suggestion of the company. The workers, which was not supported from official unions, but organized themselves reached to undo all the suspensions of the workers. Their wage demand was only partly fulfilled, the lowest wages were increased with 16% and not all wages with the same percentage. The self organized strike was a strong sign of the power the workers can have, if they stay together and united. If they learn from it they will reach even more in the further actions.
