The Minister Rasim Ljajic visits company Zdravlje Actavis

The meeting of the Minister of Labour and Social Politic in the government of Republic Serbia, Mr. Rasim Ljajic and syndicate “Independence”, Independent syndicate, National Employment Service and leadership of the company was held 12th October 2009 in Leskovac. The purpose of the meeting was to find a solution for efficient overcoming and diminishing of social consequences of upcoming rationalisation of employees in the company.

The meeting was organized in preparatory faze of the Program of redundancy declaration, with purpose of active engagement of all parts that share responsibility and are in the position to find solution which would alleviate and significantly overcome these decisions.

“This is the example of proper social dialog to other companies, managements and syndicates in Serbia” - said Minister Rasim Ljajic after the meeting and explained – “The Management of Zdravlje showed that together with syndicates participates in finding the best solutions for both the employees and the company. Zdravlje Actavis is one of more successful privatisation in the country but also the company which faces redundancy. However, a positive side is that the management of the company actively searches solutions for their employees and the best way to find another job. We talked about severance pay, the possibility of taking into consideration social status of employees while considering redundancy, so we wouldn’t additionally jeopardise the ones that are already in bad position by the situation and crisis in our country. The State will help a number of people to find new jobs through different kinds of retraining and additional training and acquiring opportunities to start their own business” – concluded the Minister Ljajic.

The initiative for efficient cooperation of the company, syndicates and the State in direction of finding the best solutions, the general director of Zdravlje, Mr Miomir Nikolic pointed out that the exact number of redundant people would be finally determined after the convergence of a new systematisation and organizational changes in the company.

“The purpose of today’s meeting wasn’t just determination of the amount of severance pay, but finding the best solution to prevent and alleviate social problems which would happen after the rationalisation of employees by the end of this year. With that we expect help of all national factors: syndicates, National Employment Service and the Government of Republic Serbia, so we could together find the best solutions.”

The representative of the syndicate “Independence”, professor dr Zoran Stojiljkovic pointed out the following:

“In the situation when we mainly talk about redundancy, it is extremely important to think about sustainable existence and new employment. So far our cooperation with the company Zdravlje Actavis was constructive since the management shows two important aspects of socially-responsible business: as the employee, the company determined higher severance pay than those prescribed by the Law and at the same time intends to offer its former employees the possibility of business cooperation. That model showed to be efficient in provision of sustainable existence and we expect a concrete initiative would be the beginning of the work which would determine the final number of employees to leave the company by the end of the year and available possibilities to help those people save their existence.”

The agency support

Regarding the mutual meeting of the Minister of Labour and Social Politic, syndicates’ representatives, National Employment Service and the management of the company Zdravlje Actavis, the agency provided the following support:

-preparation of internal visitation protocol
-preparation of media statements
-invitation of medias
-coordination of medias’ interests
-press and video clipping