Independent Agriculture Trade Union: State Offering Aid to Mitros So That It Doesn’t Stop Producing

The Government of Serbia is looking for a solution whereby the owner of the meatpacking company Mitros, the Austrian company Gierlinger Holding, would not close that factory, as it announced it would.

Two strategies are being considered – state aid or sale, as the Beta news agency learned at the Independent Trade Union of Workers in Agriculture, Food, Tobacco Industry and Water Management of Serbia.

The president of that trade union, Zivorad Kolarevic, said that the owners of Mitros had had a meeting at the Government of Serbia the day before and that those two options had been considered, and on the morning of that day, the vice-president of the Football Association of Serbia and a member of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), Branislav Nedimovic, promised in the party premises of Sremska Mitrovica to the trade unions that the state was looking for a solution so that over 500 workers would not lose their jobs.

– The state is ready to help Mitros continue its production and reorient to the local market, instead of exports, and if such a solution is not agreed, a sale of that meatpacking company will be attempted – Kolarevic said.

The owners of Mitros announced that “based on a detailed analysis of business operations, the management is forced to make the difficult decision to stop the production activities in the company Mitros Fleischwaren (meat products) in Sremska Mitrovica.”

The president of the branch of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia (SSSS) in Mitros, Milan Smoljanovic, said that the owners had notified the workers that the production was being shut down due to the bad financial results some ten days before.

– Until then, there were no problems, the salaries were paid on time and to the accounts and no dinar was missing from the salaries of around 550 workers – Smoljanovic told Beta.

He added that the owners were now promising that they would also pay severance packages according to the law and that the negotiations were yet to start, but that the exact date of the closing of that meatpacking company had not been announced.

According to him, the trade union at the company was founded a year ago and there was no resistance from the owner.

He said that he assumed that the problems had occurred due to the higher price of meat in Serbia compared to Europe.

Gierlinger Holding has been operating in Serbia since 2016, and the opening of the factory was also attended by the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic.

Vucic said at the time that the Austrian company had received financial help from the Government of Serbia in the amount of EUR 5.3 million, as a subsidy for employments, and the owner of the company, Johann Gierlinger, as the media reported, spoke at an SNS rally.

For slightly over 13 hectares of land with the right of use and a total of 36 Mitros facilities, the Austrian investor paid EUR 800,000 and announced investments of around ten million euros.

Nedimovic, who was the mayor of Sremska Mitrovica at the moment Mitros was sold, said that the city administration had worked for months to create the conditions for the Mitros’s facilities to be registered so that it could be sold in the first place.

Savez samostalnih sindikata Srbije Beograd

Vlada Republike Srbije

Mitros fleischwaren doo Sremska Mitrovica

Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Serbia

SSSS

Mitros Sremska Mitrovica

Government of Serbia

Gierlinger Holding

Branislav Nedimović

Živorad Kolarević

Milan Smoljanović

meat industry

meatpacking company

closing of meat factory Mitros

state aid