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SOCIAL COOPERATIVES AS THE EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY

THE THIRD MODEL OF OPERATIONS




Belgrade, November 28 2007
The second part of the Seminar titled “Social Cooperatives as the Employment Opportunity” was held in Belgrade, and the next one has been planned for the end of November this year, which will be held in Novi Sad. Dr Zaklina Stojanovic of the School of Economics in Belgrade spoke about this subject, and through her exposé, in addition to a brief review of the cooperative movement development in the world and in our country, as well as of its importance, she presented an up-to-date identity of cooperatives, especially stressing the form of organizing economic life in our country. We may consider cooperative movement as the third model of operations (doing business) and it can contribute substantially to entrepreneurship development in Serbia, as well as to employment of a significant number of unemployed people.

The importance of cooperative movement in the world is based on the fact that a considerable part of the population are members of cooperatives, and cooperatives are an important participant in the economy and the market, and in this way they create new jobs and upgrade employment. Key values of cooperative movement are reflected in self-support, democracy, equality, justice, solidarity and self-responsibility. In addition to this, cooperative movement is characterized by ethical values it is based on, and those are honesty, frankness, social responsibility and care for other people. A cooperative is not only an agricultural cooperative, and it is not intended only for a single farmer. For these reasons, the cooperative movement, as the third model of operations, must be in compliance with the new Law, as the old Law of 1996 is inadequate and out-of-date. It is especially important that the cooperative movement model turned out to be successful in the development of women’s entrepreneurship. It is important to create an environment for the development of cooperative entrepreneurship in Serbia, but first of all, the State has to assume a favorable position regarding the cooperative sector, as well as the harmonization of cooperative rules on the level of European Union.

During the last 150 years the world hadn’t devised anything better than the cooperative idea to protect the poor social layers. As the transition brings about more serious problems concerning poverty, thus cooperative movement must be up-to-date, because the economy, motivated exclusively by profit, cannot satisfy all people’s needs.

A society disregarding people’s need to become cooperative members and thereby protecting individual and group interests is condemned to lag behind. Trade unions have to take the opportunity, namely, the implementation of cooperatives through legislation and practice, to the benefit of those who lost their jobs, and among them is a large number of union members.

 
     
 
 
 
 
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