Labor Law

Overview of this area

Labor law governs the relationship between employee and employer - from the establishment of employment, through rights and obligations during its course (salary, working hours, rest periods, occupational safety), to its termination. The primary source is the Zakon o radu (the Labor Law; "Sl. glasnik RS," no. 24/2005, 61/2005, 54/2009, 32/2013, 75/2014, 13/2017 - Constitutional Court decision, 113/2017, 95/2018 - authentic interpretation, and 109/2025 - other law), while certain issues are also governed by special regulations - the Zakon o zdravstvenom osiguranju (Health Insurance Law; sick-leave salary compensation), the Zakon o sprečavanju zlostavljanja na radu (Law on the Prevention of Workplace Harassment; mobbing), and the general rules of obligations law (damages, e.g., for a workplace injury).

This section of the portal is deliberately written from the employee's perspective, not the employer's. The texts that follow address specific, common situations where an employee is asking what they can and should do - being dismissed, non-payment of sick leave, mutual termination, redundancy, unpaid overtime, workplace injury, mobbing, disciplinary proceedings, and pregnancy sick leave - as well as the general procedure for challenging a dismissal in court and the approximate costs of a labor dispute. Alongside them are two social-protection topics that often come up in connection with employment: the assistance and care allowance and parent-caregiver status.

Labor disputes share several common features regardless of the specific trigger: the deadlines for protecting one's rights are, as a rule, short and preclusive (once they expire, the right to judicial protection is lost, regardless of whether the claim is well-founded) - a claim against a decision that violated an employee's right is filed within 60 days of delivery of the decision or of learning of the violation (Article 195 of the Labor Law) - and monetary claims arising from employment become time-barred three years from the day the obligation arose (Article 196). When the employee is the claimant, jurisdiction lies with the basic court (osnovni sud) of general territorial jurisdiction for the employer or with the court in whose territory the work is or was performed (Article 60 of the Civil Procedure Law). The texts below provide general, informational guidance - every specific situation depends on the facts of the case (the content of the employment contract, the employer's general acts, the evidence available to the employee) and requires individual legal review.

Sources

• Labor Law (Zakon o radu, Sl. glasnik RS, no. 24/2005, 61/2005, 54/2009, 32/2013, 75/2014, 13/2017 - Constitutional Court decision, 113/2017, 95/2018 - authentic interpretation, and 109/2025 - other law), Arts. 195 and 196
• Civil Procedure Law (Zakon o parničnom postupku, Sl. glasnik RS, no. 72/2011 ... 18/2020 and 10/2023 - other law), Arts. 60 and 85
• Health Insurance Law (Zakon o zdravstvenom osiguranju, Sl. glasnik RS, no. 25/2019, 92/2023 and 109/2025 - other law)
• Law on the Prevention of Workplace Harassment (Zakon o sprečavanju zlostavljanja na radu, Sl. glasnik RS, no. 36/2010)