When on Monday (June 30) Ljubiša Mandić received a decision about his dismissal from Customs Administration – Customs office Kladovo, it was not difficult to guess what the background of the story was. Dismissal for not supporting the current government or giving support to students it is an increasingly common situation faced by the citizens of Serbia.
"I have been working at the Customs Administration for three years, starting in 2022 to be precise. They kept extending my employment relationship, sometimes for three, sometimes for six months. However, yesterday they suddenly decided not to extend it, but fired me," explains Mandić to "Vreme".
Mandic says that he has always been against the current regime and that he never hid it, which is why he was under great pressure even before this case.
"I was previously employed as a meteorologist, but when the main people from the city found out about it, after about a month, I was fired. After that, I was hired at Djerdapa, but after two days, I practically didn't even start working, but was fired. It was the same situation even with the private sector," Mandic points out.
The job offer in the Customs Administration came from the president of the municipality and his deputy. According to Ljubiša Mandić, the offer was a settlement, so that he would stop attacking the party. Mandic waited almost 15 years to get a permanent job.
"If I had known what was waiting for me, I would never have said yes. I have to say that they really mistreated me at customs, constantly moved me from crossing point to crossing point, and even forced some of my colleagues to harass me," says Mandic.
If you go to rallies, you have a job
In the decision that Ljubiša Mandić received, it is stated that his fixed-term employment contract expired on Monday (June 30), and that Mandić's work obligation to the Customs Administration ends and that there is no extension of his employment.
"I know that there is no reason for the dismissal, I have colleagues who can confirm that. They called me and said that I must not refuse to go to the rally, that I have to go. You owe us for hiring you, they told me. I said that I want to repay them with work and dedication at work, not by going to rallies," Mandic points out.
Now the former customs officer says that in addition to various unpleasant situations at work, he also had to work in shifts for colleagues who go to meetings of the Serbian Progressive Party.
"There are people there who don't even know how to sign, but they regularly go to rallies and perform those party duties, so I'm sure that's the reason why they're better than me. Many colleagues also went to the rally in Zaječar, while we worked their shifts during that time," explains the "Vremena" interlocutor.
"After everything, I wonder if I'm normal, and now I feel really bad mentally, I'm taking medicine because of that," concludes Mandić.
Numerous cases from the past
The case of Ljubiša Mandić is far from an isolated one. We remind you of just a few of the many cases in which employees were fired, mostly without any explanation, for supporting students or not supporting the government.
This way of "punishing" citizens is not a current trend, but a long-known government tactic.
"Two experienced editors of the editorial office of the newspaper 'Politika' are faced with dismissals, which they claim are a punishment for an expressed civic attitude. Without a written solution, without an explanation, but with a clear message: loyalty to students is not tolerated in a system controlled by the government," wrote "Vreme" more than a month ago.
The editor of the weekend edition of "Politika" Sandra Gucijan and the editor of the Chronicle, Dorotea Čarnić, were informed that by the decision of the owner of this paper, Boban Rajić, they will be declared redundant, that is, that their jobs will be abolished by the new systematization.
According to Dorotea Čarnić, she and her colleague Gucijan believe that the dismissal has a political background, considering that both "since the fall of the canopy and the beginning of the student protests, they have not hidden their support for the students."
There are also professors and employees of EPS
Three female professors of the "Svetozar Miletić" Grammar School in Serbia were fired after suspending classes in support of the students.
"We came back on the seventh week, after the disciplinary proceedings were served, and we knew that one of three solutions awaited us. One is suspension, the second is a 25 to 30 percent salary reduction in the next few months, and the third is dismissal, which we really did not expect because that has never happened to anyone," says dismissed professor Slavica Filipović.
Goran Perišić, an employee of the Electric Power Company of Serbia (EPS) and the initiator of the "Jedinstvo Kolubara" working group, was fired, as he claims, without grounds and after supporting the students, and in a statement to FoNet he announced that he will continue the fight so that the institutions will finally work and that no one else would go through the same situation as he did.
"Without a reason to be fired, that must not happen to anyone again. We will fight with all our might so that no one will end up like me or like Dragoslav Ljubičić, who was also fired from EPS," said Perišić.
