Serbian workers rebel against foreign bosses

Qualified, cheap and little protected by law -- Serbian workers have everything to please foreign multinationals.

But discontent is growing among employees of such companies in the Balkan country, a candidate for European Union membership.

A three-week strike at a Fiat car-making plant from late June was particularly telling: the factory's 2,400 employees in Kragujevac, a city in central Serbia, sought a wage increase of over 18 percent.

While such a raise might seem steep, it would only have put their salary at 45,000 dinars (379 euros) a month -- below the average wage in the former Yugoslav republic, which in July this year was around 400 euros.

The strike was the first crisis for Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, a 41-year-old technocrat, who took over in June. She warned the unions that Fiat would not negotiate as long as the strike continued.