SLDG: Access to Justice and Structural Injustice of Precarious Workers in Serbia

The image is a work by Đorđe Andrejević Kun titled Blood-soaked Gold

This dissertation aims to show that access to justice in the field of labour law is denied to precarious workers in Serbia not only because of the ineffectiveness of procedural rights in the Serbian legal system, but also because of the structural injustice that precarious workers face and from which they are not protected. In the context of the increasing flexibilization of the labour market, precarious employment has become a dominant form of work in the service sector. Serbia has not remained immune to this trend, particularly within franchise chains (such as McDonald’s and KFC), where employment relations are often shaped by non-standard contracts. The dissertation analyses the systemic barriers that precarious workers face in accessing justice when their labour rights are violated. The research will be based on in-depth interviews and an analysis of the legal provisions of the relevant Serbian labour legislation, in order to show that the existing legal system is ineffective and does not provide these workers with sufficient labour rights. Drawing on Iris Marion Young’s theory of structural injustice, the dissertation explores how deeply embedded social, institutional, and economic structures condition the effectiveness of labour rights enforcement. Moving beyond procedural issues such as financial constraints and institutional inefficiency, the research analyses how precarious workers seek justice while simultaneously facing multiple levels of structural barriers that restrict their access to it.