For the workers of the municipality of Bar who have not used annual leave since 2008, among whom is the first man of Bar Dušan Raicevic, that local administration in 2022 and 2023 paid a total of 159.274,91 euros based on compensation for damages.
The President of the Municipality of Bar, Dušan Raičević, was paid 3.082,56 euros at the end of December last year for vacations that he did not use in 2018 and 2019. To the former president of that local administration Zoran Srzentić In 2018, EUR 7.856,58 was paid for the period from 2015 to 2018.
Marija Toskovic Kaludjerovic, head of the office of the president of the municipality, was entitled to 3.795,33 euros for the six years during which she did not take annual vacations, i.e. for 2009, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2018 and 2019.
I give you Dabanović, former secretary of the Secretariat for Property, Representation and Investments, received 18.008,46 euros for the period from 2008 to 2019.
Vesko Gvozdenović, former secretary of the Secretariat for Communal Housing Affairs and Environmental Protection received EUR 2009 for the years 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2.385,00, during which he did not go on vacation.
Svetlana Gažević, the secretary of the Secretariat for Local Self-Government in the period from 2010 to 2014, and then in 2016 and 2018, also did not rest, so she received 9.951,53 euros on that basis.
Zoran Radojicic, former chief administrator for the period from 2017 to 2021, upon his retirement, he was entitled to compensation in the amount of 9.246,18 euros. Ivana Backovic, the secretary of the Secretariat for Finance, did not use vacation from 2009 to 2015, with the exception of 2014, and was entitled to 4.931,36 euros.
Dejan Skerovic, the former head of the Municipal Police Service for Communal Supervision received 918,18 for 2018. Darko Vidakovic, former commander of the Protection and Rescue Service, for the years 2021 and 2022, when he retired, he was entitled to 4.246,64 euros. In 2008, he didn't even go on vacation Co Vulević, commander of the Protection and Rescue Service, and the Municipality of Bar compensated him with 1.785,50 euros.
On the same day, December 26, 2023, compensations were paid for Raičević, Gvozdenović, Gažević, Tošković Srzentić and Vulević. Raičević reported this income to the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (ASK), which can be seen in his property record on the ASK website.
They did not take vacations because, as they claim, it was not possible due to the existing work process within the secretariat of the municipality of Bar due to the volume of work and the necessity of the constant presence of employees at the workplace.
"It is important to emphasize that a significant part of the compensation to these persons was paid for the periods when the said persons were not in secretarial or managerial positions but were employed as civil servants. Also, all compensations refer to the years and period in which the law provided such a right to the employee", they told "Vijesta" from the Municipality of Bar.
They also noted that the then valid Labor Law allowed monetary compensation for employees due to unused vacations, so these rights were realized in accordance with the law.
The payments in question were made on the basis of court rulings, decisions of the Agency for Peaceful Resolution of Disputes and decisions made on the basis of requests from employees for compensation, said the Municipality of Bar. According to the judgment of the court for two employees, according to the decisions of the Agency for Peaceful Resolution of Disputes by Agreement for 33 employees and based on the decisions made based on the employee's request for eight employees.
In the course of 2024, one judgment was passed on the same basis, eight proceedings are ongoing before the court and four before the Agency for Peaceful Resolution of Disputes.
Olive Markovic, the protector of the property and legal interests of the Municipality of Bar, when asked whether she thinks it is indicative that so many workers have received this compensation in the past two years, answered that the provisions of Article 211 of the Labor Law stipulate that monetary claims arise on the basis of work and from work expire within four years.
This, as she said, led to a greater number of employees and former employees, until January 2024, XNUMX, than was previously the case, to initiate disputes for the payment of monetary claims based on work, both in the Municipality of Bar and in other local governments. and state authorities. "The municipality of Bar took advantage of the opportunity for out-of-court settlement of individual labor disputes, where it estimated that it would resolve the dispute in a more efficient, economical way. However, in cases in which she did not accept a peaceful resolution of the dispute in part or in whole, the employees had the opportunity to exercise their rights before the court, which was used by a smaller number of employees," said Marković.
The reasons why this type of dispute occurred at the Municipality of Bar is the impossibility to adequately provide a replacement for employees during the annual vacation and to ensure a smooth work process, she assessed.
"The Municipality of Bar did not accept requests for the peaceful resolution of labor disputes related to the period up to 2008 and after 2020, so that a small number of court proceedings are conducted at the Basic Court in Bar for the indicated period," she said.
According to the Labor Law, which entered into force on January 7, 2020, the provision of Article 79 paragraph 6 stipulates that an employee cannot waive the right to annual leave, nor can that right be denied, while paragraph 7 stipulates that the right to annual leave cannot be replaced by monetary compensation, except in the case of termination of employment, which norms are required to be respected by both employers and employees, Marković reminded, which means that on this basis there will be no more costs for the Municipality of Bar.
Raičević: Unused holidays are a consequence of the work process
On June 19, at the 20th Session of the Municipal Assembly, Bar Democrat Momčilo Leković asked a councilor's question to Raičević and asked for information on whether and if not the municipal administration will use the right to vacation in 2024.
In Raičević's answer, which "Vijesti" has access to, it is written that issues concerning the acquisition of the right to annual leave, number of days, prevention of use, schedule of use, deadlines, waiver or denial of this right are clearly regulated by the provisions of the Labor Law and collective agreement.
As he wrote, in accordance with these regulations, employees in local self-government bodies, depending on the work process and the defined plan for the use of annual vacations of the organizational units, can use the annual vacation for the current year 2024 in its entirety or in two parts, and this right can be used continuously by employees achieve.
"In relation to the statement from the explanation of the committee's question that the Municipality of Bar had a practice of not using vacations and later collecting damages, we hereby deny and reject such allegations for the reason that the unused vacations were first the result of the needs of the work process, and then of the realization of legal opportunities damages to employees for unused annual vacations, and no way to present to the public the abuse of this right by employees," Raičević concluded.
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