19.06.2015.

Support for the work of union activists in MoD and SAF

Minister of Defence Bratislav Gasic spoke with representatives of union groups of the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces, upon the initiative of the City Union of management, judiciary, defence and police.

Addressing the various information on the process of rationalization of workplaces in the public sector, Minister Gasic stressed that the Ministry of Defence intensively worked on protection of material position and status of all MoD and SAF employees. For that reason, the unions will be consulted about the work on the Rulebook on salaries and other remunerations of professional SAF members, especially concerning the remunerations such as increased living and travel expenses. Likewise, it is expected for the unions to contribute in the process of organizational mobilization changes, as adequate solutions are also lacking in that field.

Gasic positively assessed this kind of meetings and suggested that they should be more frequent. He stressed the importance of untroubled work of the unions and called for their representatives to state the possible cases of interruption or prevention of their activities. He stressed that he would support every decision of union activists in MoD and SAF whose goal is the exchange of information and creation of a better environment for social dialogue.

The union representatives agreed that future public statements should be mutually coordinated, which would be in their best interest, and would prevent disinformation that had often previously confused the public. Upon the suggestion of the City Union for integration of the present group of union character whose members are professional SAF members, Minister Gasic stressed that it represented a segment of autonomous decision-making of union organizations.

One of the topics of the meeting was normative management of union organization in the Ministry and the Armed Forces. Currently, changes and amendments to the Rule of Service of SAF are under way for arrangement of the positions of groups of union character in MoD and SAF, which is in the agreement phase on the SAF General Staff level and is not under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Defence.