Dismissed TV Un employees cannot go to the office

17.09.2024. / 16:32

SARAJEVO – Former employees of Una television, shut down after being placed on the “black list” of the United States of America, still have not received their promised salaries for August, nor can they report to the “office” where they should exercise their right to benefits, because they have not been issued payroll for that month.

The former workers of this sanctioned company say that they are the only ones exempted among the former workers of the “Infinity International Group” who received two salaries in advance, for August and September, while they have still not been paid anything.

They say that their employers paid their July salary through the also sanctioned company “Prointer ITSS”, but since it has no “live” transaction account left, they say they fear that they will not even pay their August salary.

Former worker Maja Popović says that her and her colleagues’ suspicions have come true and that now they cannot register at the Employment Office because they do not have the last three pay slips.

“In Republika Srpska, three pay slips are required to apply to the bureau in order to be able to calculate the amount of compensation. We didn’t get it. I submitted the papers to the Institute, but they said that we are waiting for the last payslip. According to their law, colleagues in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina do not need three pay slips, because they receive 50 percent of the average salary.”says Popović.

She says there is no one in the company she can talk to about this.

Journalists and other employees of Una Television lost their jobs on July 31 after the introduction of US sanctions, which accused them, like other companies within the Infinity Group, of forming a support network for the President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik and his family.

This is the first company that was shut down after the introduction of sanctions. Putting it on the “Black List” was used as a reason to shut down this media, which created a loss of almost 8.5 million marks in just two years of operation.

The management of the defunct television had two approaches to the workers, depending on which entity they work for. Thus, workers in Banja Luka were given a notice period of three months, i.e. until the end of September.

The workers say that due to different legal solutions, the employees in Banja Luka signed a two-month notice period at the end of July, while the Sarajevo newsroom signed a one-month notice period.

Everyone was told not to come to work anymore, and that they would be paid their salaries for August if they were in the FBiH, or August and September if they were registered in the RS. Everyone counted on fees from the bureau until they could find a new job.

On their last day at work, they were given their workbooks, but when they tried to report to the bureau earlier this month, they realized they couldn’t because they didn’t have the three most recent payslips.

During that time, workers from members of the same group “Prointer” and Alternative Television received their August and September salaries in advance.

Una is the only one in liquidation

Until now, Una is the only sanctioned company that has started the liquidation process. Almost 80 workers were dismissed. Termination contracts were signed, which for the team in Sarajevo meant termination of employment on August 31, plus severance pay for workers who have been employed for more than two years.

For employees in Banja Luka, the notice period continues, and should end on September 30. The workers received their salary for July on August 15 via the “Prointer” account.

The workers of Una TV received their last salary a month ago, that is, almost two months ago.

We tried to get a statement on the payment of Una TV workers from Bojan Vujić, who is now the head of the “Invictus Technology Group”, created after the shutdown of “Infinity”, but he did not answer our calls, and he did not answer this question in the correspondence via text messages.

CAPITAL: A. Pisarevic