No. 07-00-551/2024-02   Date: 23 April 2025

The 0pinion was issued in the procedure following the complaint filed by AA from … (hereinafter: the complainant) against BB, principal of School VV in … (hereinafter: the principal), on the grounds of discrimination based on membership in political, trade union, and other organizations. In the complaint and its supplements, it was stated, among other things, that the complainant works at the school as a teacher, that the principal does not include her in the commissions for extraordinary exams in which teachers are supposed to rotate; that she does not acknowledge the success of the complainant’s students when awarding city prizes; that she unjustifiably reduced the number of solfeggio classes assigned to her, referring to the decision on a forty-hour work week; that as a union representative she informed the principal of the decision to suspend classes in May 2024, and that after that she was summoned to her office, during which the principal “accused her of abusing colleagues,” and during the conversation “belittled and insulted her,” and that the principal, in addition to her, also summoned other union members individually or in pairs, warning them to “think about whom they have placed their trust in,” “mentioning lists that are with the police,” on which their names are also listed, along with a warning regarding the trust they placed in the complainant by electing her as the coordinator of the trade union organization. In her statement and its supplements, the principal stated, among other things, that when selecting members for the commissions for extraordinary exams, it is not possible for all employees to be assigned as members of the commission during the school year; that the complainant had previously on several occasions been a member of the said commission; that the school principal and the Pedagogical Collegium take care that every student and teacher is awarded and commended by the school; that on the list of students and teams from primary and secondary schools who won one of the top three places in national and international competitions, it is clearly indicated that the complainant appears as a mentor; that there were, until recently, two trade union organizations at the school; that the decision of the union for its members to suspend work was not made in accordance with the law; that some employees who are members of the said union were randomly summoned to her office, and that those were mainly employees who were working at school that day, all for the purpose of obtaining necessary information required for planning the work of the school; and that none of the employees who are members of the said union suffered consequences during or after the conversation with the principal. In this regard, the Commissioner notes that the examination was limited to possible violations of anti-discrimination regulations solely in relation to AA, bearing in mind that the complaint was filed in her own name, and not on behalf of the union or its members. Also, the Commissioner did not analyze potential violations of other regulations, including the lawfulness of the (announced) strike and the submission of personal data of union members to the School Administration, as this does not fall within the Commissioner’s competence. After conducting the procedure, upon review of the evidence, it was established that the complainant, from the school year 2021/2022 up to and including the school year 2024/2025, had solfeggio classes within the teaching workload, approximately in the same volume in the current and previous school year. Additionally, the Commissioner points out that according to the relevant provisions of the Law on the Fundamentals of the Education System, the head of the institution is authorized to decide on the rights, obligations, and responsibilities of the employee, and in this sense, there is no evidence that the principal, in deciding on the rights, obligations, and responsibilities of the complainant, related to determining the volume and structure of classes, based her actions on any personal characteristic of the complainant. Also, concerning the rewarding of students and pupils, the school’s annual reports for the school years 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 stated that certain awards and recognitions were given, among others, both to the complainant’s students and to the complainant herself. The complainant notified the school authorities and all employees only at the beginning of 2024 that she was a union representative of the union, and it is therefore evident that the actions of the principal in connection with determining the number of teaching hours, decisions on awarding students and teaching staff, and the selection of members of the commission for extraordinary exams for the school years 2021/2022, 2022/2023, and 2023/2024 cannot be causally related to membership in the trade union organization or to the fact that the complainant is a union representative in the school. On the other hand, with regard to the complainant’s claims that as a union representative she was called to the principal’s office, and that the principal exerted pressure on her and other union members due to the previously announced but not carried out suspension of work on May 16, 2024, the Commissioner, after taking statements from the proposed witnesses, concluded that the complainant made it probable that an act of discrimination had occurred. All five proposed witnesses confirmed the allegations from the complaint, namely, that the principal summoned them as union members to her office for a conversation, seven days after the strike that was supposed to take place on May 16, 2024. The witnesses stated that the principal said, among other things, “that these are difficult times” and that they should “be careful whom they place their trust in,” and that they were “abused” or “used,” alluding to the complainant. Based on the witness statements, it can be concluded that the principal spoke about the complainant in a negative context, damaging her reputation and credibility, thereby creating a hostile, degrading, and offensive environment for the complainant in her workplace, i.e., in the school, based on which the complainant was placed in an unjustifiably more disadvantageous position, solely due to the fact that she is an authorized representative of the union. It can be concluded that the principal based her comments solely on the complainant’s personal attribute – membership in a trade union organization – and that she would not have spoken about her in such a way if she were not a union representative. It is also necessary to point out that such conduct by the principal occurred seven days after the date on which the suspension of work was supposed to take place at the school, which ultimately did not happen, thus additionally confirming that the described conduct of the principal was aimed at creating a hostile and degrading work environment for the complainant, solely due to the fact that she is an authorized union representative at the school. The Commissioner particularly emphasizes that the inappropriate influence of the principal in this case is also represented by the fact that all witnesses, members of the union, were informed that their names, together with the complainant’s data, were “forwarded to the police,” i.e., the School Administration, which also constitutes undue influence on the witnesses and the complainant regarding their trade union activities. It is also necessary to point out that the principal, in her statement and supplements to the statement, did not submit any evidence that would refute the allegations of the complainant in the mentioned part. After conducting the procedure, applying the provisions of Article 45 of the Law on the Prohibition of Discrimination, regarding the allegations in the complaint concerning the actions of the principal toward the complainant in connection with her union membership and her union activity after May 16, 2024, when the suspension of work was announced, the Commissioner issued the opinion that the provisions of Article 12 of the Law on the Prohibition of Discrimination were violated. BB was recommended to issue a written apology to the complainant for, through her statements about her trade union activity, violating her personality and dignity and creating a hostile and degrading environment.

COMMISSIONER FOR THE PROTECTION OF EQUALITY
Brankica Janković