Focus: Terms and conditions of employment in the garment and shoe industry in SerbiaThis country profile has been produced with the support of the Rosa-Luxemburg-Foundation. The Clean Clothes Campaign seeks to improve working conditions in the global garment industry and further specific information on the issues covered by this report can be found at: www.cleanclothes.org/livingwage/europe.Bojana Tamindžija, Stefan Aleksić and Bettina Musiolek

This powerful article, written as a country report for the Clean Clothes Campaign’s Global East (post-socialist Europe and Turkey) office and re-produced here by kind permission, examines the terms and working conditions experienced by workers in key segments in Serbia’s textiles industry, largely producing clothes for multinational brands. The article is drawn from a series of interviews with workers on the ground, conducted in summer 2017, and builds on recent media coverage of poor working conditions within the industry, as well as focusing on low wages and failures to fulfil minimum wage obligations. The authors commence with a brief discussion of the many issues faced by the domestic industry in Serbia, as well as how it has come to be dominated by multinationals, before detailing the analysis drawn from the field research. The article concludes with a small number of recommendations both to the multinationals investing in Serbia and social responsible for workers’ terms and conditions, as well as for the government charged with developing social and employment affairs policies which deliver good work and quality jobs.