Let’s listen to what the future schoolchildren tell us, what kind of country they want to live in and try to make their visions come true in a partnership that leads to a better society for all of us
Minister for Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue, Gordana Čomić, spoke at the CSR Serbia 2022 conference, dedicated to the topic of corporate social responsibility, which was held on June 30, at the Serbian National Assembly.
In her speech, Minister Čomić reminded us of the “three eights – eight hours of sleep, eight hours of work and eight hours of free time” principle.
“Unfortunately, today, ordinary people have to do one or even two extra jobs in those eight hours of free time to survive, and women have to take at least two hours out of that time for housework.
170 years ago we claimed that people have certain rights when they were doing something, and only recently did we notice that there are also people in our communities who cannot work for eight hours without assistance or can do it with difficulty and that they cannot make it to do eight hours of work.
If today, in the developed part of the world, private or public companies or anyone for that matter thinks that it is sustainable to record development while having dissatisfied people, they are deeply mistaken.
If today, in the developed part of the world, private or public companies or anyone for that matter thinks that it is sustainable to record development while having dissatisfied people, they are deeply mistaken
A human rights strategy is currently being drafted in Serbia where the private sector plays an extremely important role, and a framework is being created that clearly defines how we respect human rights, how companies see them, how we see human development and that people who work together with us to build the company and its development have to be valued and protected.
The private sector must care about employee satisfaction, the children and families of their workers and the environment in which it operates. Everyone agrees with that, but the question of how much that costs a business will always arise. Our task, as the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue, is to break stereotypes about the costs of protecting human rights. We are here to be a tool for companies in the private and public sectors in what we call the humanization of profit.
The first prejudice to eliminate is the environment and profit conflict.
They are not. They have never been in conflict and will never be in conflict. That’s what those companies that avoid paying taxes and don’t really care about the environment say.
Compared to how much a lack of awareness about the responsible development of a company in the 21st century can cost, the aforementioned costs are low, but even so, they cannot be covered by companies alone.
Every state and local government must help and become partners in this. We have to launch a dialogue. We all have to listen to the voice of unborn children and create the kind of country they want to live in one day when they start school. All people deserve to live in a more humane society than the one we have today,” Minister Čomić concluded.
The National Parliament Speaker, Ivica Dačić, Director of UNICEF Serbia, Deyana Kostandinova, Special Advisor to the Minister of Culture and Information, Gordana Predić, and CEO of Color Press, Robert Čoban, also spoke at the conference.