Agreement reached on commencement of production in Nova Srbijanka

With the help of local self-government, the employees and the management of Nova Srbijanka reached the agreement yesterday (January 19, 2010) on commencement of production.

The workers promised to immediately start production, while the management promised to pay three late salaries from 2009 to them prior to end of February.

As the City Administration of Valjevo announced, the workers will restart production because of some contracts that have already been signed, while the management announced introduction of new product portfolios.

Assistant Mayor Radivoje Milutinović said that the local self-government had made that move "for moral and human reasons and because of the problem's seriousness, as well as in order to preserve the company and environment" although it had no jurisdiction over that.

Milutinović said that the Privatization Agency would be asked for protection in case the parties failed to respect the third agreement of the kind.

The employees warned the public in mid-January that most of them had not received the salaries since August 2009.

Since there was no money for procurement of crude oil, Nova Srbijanka did not start the announced production of jam and French fries.

Similar problems were the reasons for three strikes by about 120 employees in Nova Srbijanka in the period between November 2008 and July 2009.

The owner of the factory in Valjevo is Bulgarian company Media Svjat from Sofia, which bought the property of Srbijanka in restructuring in April 2007 for about 4m EUR, at several times higher price than the starting one.