Serbia Cargo Trade Union proposing establishment of rail holding

The Serbia Cargo Trade Union has sent a letter to the Government of Serbia, that is, the ministries of transport, economy and finance, in which it requests for the four Serbian rail companies to be associated within a holding because, as they claim, that would make their operations far more successful and more professional than is the case now.

The Serbia Cargo Trade Union, as the president of that trade union organization, Zoran Dasic, explains, sees the Slovenian Railways as an example and a model of efficient operations of a rail holding company and believes that that kind of business organization should be implemented in Serbia as well.

– Considering the current division into four separate rail companies in Serbia, we are facing the situation where there is a too-big, fourfold management in them, which requires big financial expenditures. On the other hand, in each of these companies, there is the problem of the current lack of executive workers. A lack of expert workforce in management is noticeable as well. In other words, managers who are not familiar with how the rail profession functions are in those positions. Because the rail companies in Serbia work this way, the paying of the VAT, the invoicing of the services between the rail companies and the share balance are not done right. By creating a Serbian rail holding, a direct contribution would be made to an expert, professional, economic, effective and financially feasible functioning of the rail system – he points out and adds that he hopes that those in charge will accept the initiative about the forming of a rail holding.

As another problem that is a consequence of the current situation, Dasic says that the directors of separate rail companies have such authorizations that they can set a special higher price of labor than the one envisaged in the Labor Act and the collective agreement for certain employees who are mostly non-experts in leading positions. As Dasic points out, these are jobs which require higher education and extensive knowledge in the field of railroads.

– There is insistence on finding strategic partners so as to mitigate the consequences of bad management. We thereby require the current management to take responsibility for the ruination and destruction of state property, which negatively affects the citizens and the employees in the rail companies – says Dasic.

Before the Serbia Cargo Trade Union sent the memo to the address of the Government of Serbia, they sent their proposition to the competent Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, which responded by saying that “finding the optimal solution for management is a complex and demanding process which entails the analysis of a large number of factors.”

The foreign investments consultant Mahmud Busatlija says that the initiative for the organization of the rail companies in Serbia into a holding sounds good in the sense that it would introduce centralized management, which could lead to positive results, but that, on the other hand, forming a holding is not at all simple and cannot be done properly without a precise and well-devised plan.

– There’s no way we can say that, by itself, forming a rail holding would automatically improve the operations. Quite the contrary, it is very important how to organize the holding, that is, to make an effective plan – explains Busatlija and adds that it is necessary to plan what type of a holding would lead to a successful functioning of the rail companies.

According to him, establishing a holding would not automatically mean a reduction of the management, because each part of the holding has to have its own management.

As a reminder, the once single company Serbian Railways was split in 2015 into four separate companies, Srbijavoz, Serbian Railways Infrastructure, Serbia Cargo and Serbian Railways.

Srbija Kargo a.d. Beograd

Srbijavoz a.d. Beograd

Infrastruktura Železnice Srbije Beograd

Železnice Srbije a.d. Beograd

Ministarstvo građevinarstva, saobraćaja i infrastrukture Republike Srbije

Ministarstvo privrede Republike Srbije

Ministarstvo finansija Republike Srbije

Slovenian Railways

Serbia Cargo Trade Union

Serbian Railways Holding

Zoran Dašić

Mahmud Bušatlija

forming of rail holding