Trade unionist Teja Jarc has gotten lucky again – a job in one of Europe’s leading trade unions is on the cards for her, which includes more than excellent pay, although Jarc has not yet confirmed this information. The Slovenian public remembers her mainly as a protester during the term of the previous government, when she shouted at Janez Janša and Aleš Hojs at Kredarica. Despite being a great ideological opponent of the right, the daughter of the police attaché in Zagreb was not bothered by the 250 thousand euros she received during the third term of the Janša government. What is more, we recently reported that the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) has also filed a criminal complaint against the Youth Plus (Mladiplus) trade union, which she runs.
According to information received by the moja-dolenjska.si web portal from reliable sources, Tea Jarc is leaving for European trade unions in May to take up a well-paid job with a salary of 7 thousand euros and more per month. These sources wonder whether this is payment to Jarc for all of the kilometres she has cycled in Slovenia against the government of Janez Janša. The portal also recalled that Friday’s cyclist Tea Jarc, who has also been described by many as having a very hysterical personality, is also known for stalking Janez Janša on the Triglav trail. In addition, photographs have been leaked of the current Minister of Labour Luka Mesec, Jaša Jenull and Tea Jarc sitting in Ljubljana’s Moderna café in early 2022, where they were allegedly planning protests against the previous government.
Tea Jarc is the founder and one of the central figures of the Youth Plus trade union. During the “evil dictatorial” government, they received €251,190.10 of taxpayers’ money from June 2020 to November 2021, and before that, they received €709,487.90 since 2014. Jarc was thus able to afford the trip to the dreamy Seychelles when she took a break during the protests. The trade union Youth Plus is also in the family of the central trade unions united in the Association of Free Trade Unions of Slovenia (ZSSS) under the leadership of Lidija Jerkić. The web portal Prava.si pointed out some time ago that Jarc is one of those citizens who can afford anything in the name of her supporters. No wonder, since her father, Srečko Jarc, spent most of his time in senior police positions and is now the police attaché in Zagreb.
The President of the Youth Plus trade union, a trade union of students and unemployed young people, which operates under the umbrella of the aforementioned Slovenian Association of Free Trade Unions, was elected Chair of the Youth Committee of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) in Brussels at the end of 2019. ETUC is a confederation that brings together and represents members and affiliates from 90 trade union organisations and 38 European countries. Jarc was nominated for the position by the Association of Free Trade Unions of Slovenia. Her mandate ended in June 2022, and during her 2.5-year mandate, one of her main activities, according to the trade union Youth Plus, has been to shape European policies in the areas of post-epidemic recovery with measures targeting young people and workers in precarious forms of work, the entry of young people into the labour market and youth unemployment, the regulation of platform work, and an EU-wide ban on unpaid internships. In practice, however, she seemed to be more concerned with protests, the persecution of Catholics, election propaganda and the spontaneous stalking of the then-Prime Minister Janša, which turned into a shouting match in the middle of Kredarica.
The fact is that Jarc can afford to do much more than an ordinary mortal in this country can, especially because of the support from a large part of the media and politics. She also enjoys strong support from individuals in the European Parliament. When she was President of the Slovenian Youth Council, the organisation received a financial injection from George Soros, which she then used to promote MEP candidates Tanja Fajon and Ivo Vajgl under the pretext of promoting youth participation in the European elections. The elections took place during her Presidency in the Slovenian Youth Council in 2014. After the elections, Jarc was even rewarded for her hard work with a well-paid position as an assistant at Vajgl’s cabinet. And it was Vajgl who enabled her political career and her promotion up the political hierarchy to trade unionist.
It is also worth noting that in January of this year, a criminal complaint was reportedly lodged with the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) against the NGOs Youth Plus, Focus, Aksiom and the Peace Institute. This is according to Twitter user Joséphin Beauharnais, who also published the full criminal complaint. The NGOs are accused of misusing thousands of euros of EU funds, and according to the Prava web portal, the text has been verified as a serious and credible document. The applicants have filed a complaint on suspicion of fraud against the European Union, and they have also been charged with forgery, in order to carry out the aforementioned offences, false accounting and falsification of accounts, bribery, money laundering, and tax evasion, in addition to the other offences. The document states that the NGOs listed channelled a large part of the funds into other activities through related organisations and persons, and then used the funds for personal purposes and in political “campaigns” of friendly political groups for political marketing and pre-election propaganda in 2022.
The Youth Plus trade union employed 4.58 people in 2020 and 3.99 in 2021. Gross wages paid amounted to €65,121 in 2020 and €50,289 in 2021. The average net salary per employee per month was, therefore, €812, provided that all employees were paid the same salary. The Youth Plus trade union, which fights for the employment rights of young people, pays its own employees the minimum wage, provided that it has not paid them holiday pay. And if it has – which is not clear from the available data – then the average wage is even lower, which is contrary to the collective agreement. There is also a significant “turnover” in the number of employees each year, which can be attributed to poor working conditions or to the union’s failure to provide regular employment for its workers.
Sara Kovač
