Mil 64/43: Workers in Yugoslavia press for their rights {eyewitness r.
Luko Willms
The Militant - November 13, 2000 -- Workers in Yugoslavia press for
their rights
Vol.64/No.43 November 13, 2000
Workers in Yugoslavia press for their rights
============================================
New regime seeks to demobilize workers,
aims to pursue integration into world market system
(lead article)
BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS AND BOBBIS MISAILIDIS
NIS, Yugoslavia--On a visit to the Tobacco Industry of Nis (DIN)
complex here October 27, the mood among workers was noticeably
different from what these reporters had witnessed on a previous visit
in April 1999.
At that time, Yugoslavia was being subjected to a brutal U.S.-NATO
bombing campaign, which in large part targeted industrial centers.
DIN, the country's largest cigarette manufacturing facility, was one
of the plants that was bombed, and workers there, outraged by the
bombing and left jobless, were understandably tense and nervous about
their future. In addition, they were subjected to the bureaucratic
regime headed by Slobodan Milosevic.
On the most recent visit to the plant, hundreds of people were
streaming in and out of the main gate during the afternoon shift
change. Among the couple of dozen workers interviewed at the plant
gate, the mood was mostly self-confident and hopeful for improved
conditions. Many described different aspects of the new political
space that working people have won since the overthrow of the hated
Milosevic regime in early October--the increased ability to speak out,
discuss politics, and organize for their rights.
At the same time, discussions with a number of people at DIN indicate
that the fight to keep and extend the increased degree of control that
workers have begun to exert--to improve job conditions, raise living
standards, and protect the gains of nationalized property--is only
beginning and is full of contradictions.
Similar changes, as well as challenges facing working people, are
unfolding across the country in many spheres of life.
Outrage over 1999 NATO bombing
"Virtually nothing has been repaired in the factory since the NATO
bombing," said Suzana Storadinovic before going into the plant for her
shift that day. Buildings bombed last year can still be seen burned
out. Most of the complex is operational, however, and workers said the
3,000 employees have been back to work for almost a year.
"The one thing that we fixed since last year is the kindergarten and
child-care center," said Ljiljana Jovanovic, who works in cigarette
packaging. "As you can see, that's needed for many of us to be able to
work," she added, pointing to a number of workers picking up their
kids from child care at the end of their shift.
These two workers, and all others interviewed outside DIN, voiced
their vehement opposition to the military assault led by Washington
last year. All working people interviewed in different cities
expressed this view, regardless of their opinions on other questions.
"It's a lie that Clinton's target was Milosevic and his military,"
said Snezana Arantelovic, another production worker. "Why did he hit
our plants? We got rid of Milosevic, not NATO."
These workers--along with Zoran Milojkovic, who took Militant
reporters to the plant--explained what happened in the days leading up
to October 5, when a mass revolt and general political strike forced
Milosevic to resign and concede victory to Vojislav Kostunica,
presidential candidate of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS).
Milojkovic is the local president of Nezavisnost (Independence), the
largest trade union federation not tied directly to the previous
regime.
On October 4, DIN's manager locked employees inside the factory to try
to prevent them from joining protests in town, we were told.
Approximately 50,000 people had gathered in downtown Nis that day to
demand that Milosevic step down. At one point, unionists led the crowd
in a march on the DIN complex, surrounding the plant and forcing the
gates open so that thousands of tobacco workers could join the
demonstration.
"That was the end of Zoran Arantelovic," said Snezana Arantelovic,
referring to the former DIN director. "And no, I am not related to
that man," she added emphatically, with a smile.
Workers at DIN launched a five-day strike that day, joining hundreds
of thousands of others around Serbia who had already taken job action
to demand Milosevic respect the popular will and resign.
Nearly 10,000 people from Nis, including many from DIN, went to
Belgrade the next morning as part of the half-million-strong
outpouring that led to the toppling of the regime, several tobacco
workers reported. Nis, with a population of more than 300,000, is
Yugoslavia's second-largest city.
Milojkovic said that on the morning of October 5, he along with dozens
of others took over the main police station in Nis, in a preemptive
attempt to stop the cops from sending reinforcements to Belgrade.
Replacement of DIN manager
"The main demand of our strike was to remove the entire management
board," Snezana Arantelovic said. "The manager stole 40 million
Deutsche marks from the company. He forced us to work during the
bombings last year. He was replaced after the strike." Workers in the
administration have found hard evidence of embezzlement, and a
committee has now been set up to investigate, she added.
The pro-Milosevic manager resigned October 9 and the entire management
board of DIN has since been replaced. Those interviewed said workers
in the plant were not consulted on the new appointments and did not
know who made them. The new manager is a local leader of the
Democratic Opposition of Serbia.
"It's better now on the job. Today I was able to speak to the new
manager about some problems at work," said Predrag Draganic, an
operator of a tobacco processing machine, after getting off work.
"Before we just had to shut up and work. The old manager was only for
himself, and to hell with the workers. The change is good. But I don't
know how much is due to the new manager and how much is due to the
strike and what we did."
The old trade union also "fell apart," said Arantelovic, referring to
the officialdom tied to the Milosevic regime. "The union is still
here, but the people who run it have changed. We put pressure on the
union bureaucrats to support us going on strike. They had no choice,"
said Arantelovic.
Earlier that day, Militant reporters had visited the office of
Nezavisnost in central Nis. In an interview there, local union
president Milojkovic said that a number of workers from 30 companies,
including DIN, had left the pro-Milosevic union and joined Nezavisnost
in the last three weeks of October. In Belgrade, Nezavisnost leaders
told the Militant that national membership has jumped from 200,000 to
as much as half a million in the same period.
From what workers at the DIN plant gate and other factories reported,
however, these claims may be exaggerated. At the tobacco plant, all
those interviewed knew about the fleeing of the old union officials.
Only one worker, however, had heard anything about Nezavisnost
organizing at the plant.
Susana Storadinovic said she had been taking part in protests over the
last 10 years against the wars that the Milosevic regime initiated,
against the regime's chauvinist policies, and for democratic rights.
During all this time, she pointed out, "wages have not changed."
Workers at the DIN complex make on average 200 DM per month, several
reported.
Even though this is the "best wage in Nis," as Ljiljana Jovanovic put
it, many workers can make ends meet only by getting some food from
relatives in the countryside, cultivating a piece of land they have,
or selling goods on the side. A majority of Nis's population still has
ties to the land, we were told.
While wages for employed workers averaged 150 DM (US$81) per month
last year, minimum expenses for food and utilities such as electricity
and telephone were around 200 DM per month.
Economic conditions, not just in Nis but for the majority of
Yugoslavia's people, are devastating. According to figures cited by
Nezavisnost officials and RTS television, unemployment is somewhere
between 50 percent and 70 percent in a population of 11 million.
Inflation is high and the black market continues in relation to such
basic necessities as gasoline, heating fuel, and a range of food
items.
This economic crisis is the result of the world capitalist economic
crisis combined with the anti-working-class methods of planning and
management by the previous bureaucratic regimes in Yugoslavia. It has
also been sharply exacerbated by the economic war and military
assaults by Washington and other imperialist powers throughout the
1990s.
Many working people believe the collapse of Milosevic's police state
means they may have a better chance to fight to improve these
conditions. Others are not as optimistic, however.
At the DIN plant gate, Militant reporters met a number of unemployed
workers who had just applied for a job at the tobacco factory.
Slobodanka Stoiljkovic said 1,500 people had showed up that morning to
apply for 58 openings at DIN. She thought she had virtually no chance
of getting a job there.
"Most, if not all, of the 58 jobs have already been given out," she
stated. "Before, you had to be for Milosevic. Now you still have to be
connected with the government."
Resistance to undermining state propertyAmong the "reforms"
implemented by the Milosevic regime and its predecessors that opened
up Yugoslavia increasingly to the laws of the capitalist market was a
form of "privatization" of some state-owned industries. Under this
scheme, shares were issued to workers, managers, and others outside
the company. The "stockholders" supposedly decided how the company was
run. In reality, cronies of the regime, especially in management, used
the setup to siphon more assets from these firms.
In some cases, managers had gone so far in acting as company owners
that they tried to legalize turning over the entire enterprise to
themselves, especially as they saw the end of the Milosevic regime
approaching.
One such case was Rudo, a plant in Nis that manufactures orthopedic
medical equipment. It was one of the plants that was badly damaged by
the NATO air raids. The damage to the top floors from the bombs last
year has not been fixed.
When Militant reporters arrived at Rudo on the afternoon of October
27, the shift had ended early so we did not meet any of the workers
except the security guard, who is in the union. The story he and
Nezavisnost officials recounted was largely confirmed in articles from
the local press. Workers have put up a large poster with the names of
all the company managers whose removal they have won, and have dubbed
that side of the factory building "the wall of shame."
A number of the 100 workers at this factory found out that most of the
company managers were trying to privatize the company--that is, make
it their own--days before Milosevic's downfall. The workers' union,
Nezavisnost, is officially in favor of "privatization," according to
union brochures.
Workers immediately occupied the plant October 2, declared a strike,
and demanded the arrest of these managers. The arrests took place by
October 7, the day after Milosevic resigned. Two weeks later, a local
court codified the workers' victory by annulling all the actions of
the managers to make the plant private property.
It is such actions by workers--not by the newly formed "crisis
committees" as the Militant reported in a previous article--that in
practice have defended nationalized property relations and countered
attempts by the would-be capitalists in power to open up Yugoslavia
further to capitalist penetration.
Character of 'crisis committees'
As far as Militant reporters could find, these "crisis committees" at
many different workplaces have been organized by leaders of the
Democratic Opposition of Serbia from outside the enterprises involved.
They are not made up of workers. The committees seek to ensure that
DOS supporters are appointed as new managers in workplaces where
workers have forced the removal of hated directors.
In Kragujevac, for example, DOS leaders initiated such a "crisis
committee" to replace the management of the large Zastava auto plant.
The committee was led by a representative of the Christian Democratic
Party who had never worked for Zastava. The old guard was swiftly
replaced by new directors loyal to DOS, with little or no consultation
with the workers. Nezavisnost, which organizes about 20 percent of the
workers in that plant, and its members were excluded from any
involvement in this process, said Milan Nikolic, a Nezavisnost
executive board member in Belgrade from the metalworkers union.
In other cases, DOS leaders have tried to slow down removal of hated
managers--especially where workers have taken steps to assume more
control on the job--and strike deals with Socialist Party officials,
who continue to head many of the country's institutions and
enterprises.
At the Ikarbus bus manufacturing plant in Belgrade, for example, the
majority of the workforce abandoned the pro-Milosevic trade union and
signed up with the metalworkers branch of Nezavisnost to fight more
effectively to improve working conditions and wages, Nezavisnost
supporters reported. One of the demands of the workers was the removal
of the company manager for bureaucratic abuse of the workers and
corruption. These unionists said their goal was to do this by secret
ballot of all employees. They also planned to elect worker
representatives to an assembly that would give workers a say in who is
appointed as new administrators.
DOS leaders, however, pressured and convinced union lawyers,
administrative personnel, and Nezavisnost officials to slow down this
process and, instead, build up a criminal case against the manager so
he could be replaced in "a legal manner."
Changes within the privileged caste
These instances underscore the fact that the new government headed by
Vojislav Kostunica does not represent a qualitative break from the
former Milosevic regime in its political course and class character.
While the old police-state regime has been replaced, the new petty-
bourgeois government continues to defend the interests of the
privileged bureaucratic caste that politically rules the Yugoslav
workers state.
The leaders of the DOS and Serbian Renewal Movement--the two main
opposition groups that are now part of a "transition government" in
Serbia along with the former ruling Socialist Party of Serbia--are
part of the same social caste that Milosevic and his cronies belong
to.
The new regime incorporates new layers from the intelligentsia and
middle classes who were not in positions of power before October 5.
The leadership of the Democratic Party, of which Kostunica is
president, is largely composed of lawyers, doctors, university
professors, and other professionals with a bourgeois orientation and
thoroughly anti-working-class program.
The DOS has adopted an economic program that calls for widespread
privatization of state-run enterprises and aims at rapid integration
of Yugoslavia into the world capitalist market system. It projects
selling off the cement and tobacco industries, the state airline, the
Novi Sad oil refinery, the electrical company, and the petrochemical
industry. Their plans count on massive international loans, and
government officials are already pursuing membership in the
International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
In some cases, DOS leaders are trying to take over institutions
previously used by the Milosevic regime, or strike deals for joint
control with Socialist Party leaders, and use them for their own
purposes.
In an October 24 interview at the Nezavisnost national headquarters in
Belgrade, Milan Nikolic stated, "Certain DOS leaders have put
Nezavisnost in a very difficult situation. They have breathed life
into the union federation that was tied with Milosevic and are trying
to turn it into their union--against our efforts to reorganize most
workers into Nezavisnost. We have not made a big deal out of this yet
because we don't want to break ranks since we share similar goals."
At the Zastava auto plant in Kragujevac, Nezavisnost supporters there
report that DOS leaders are trying to take control of the formerly pro-
Milosevic union and keep Nezavisnost isolated from trying to organize
a bigger section of the workforce than it currently does.
In some cases, DOS leaders have run into some initial opposition in
trying to sweep their people into positions at the head of
universities, state-owned enterprises, and other institutions.
Bojan Boskovic, a leader of the Students Union of Yugoslavia at the
University of Novi Sad, related one such instance. His organization
campaigned against the U.S.-NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and opposed the
brutal, chauvinist policies of the Milosevic regime in Kosova. It was
also among the main organizers of local protests demanding the ouster
of Milosevic leading up to the October 5 revolt.
In Novi Sad, Boskovic said, students took action to stop or slow down
the replacement of deans and heads of university departments. He said
this was because the local politicians that won the September 24
elections were trying to replace the old guard with individuals chosen
on the basis of their rank in the DOS, disregarding opinions of
students and other faculty.
The toppling of the secret-police Milosevic regime creates more
possibilities for workers and farmers in Yugoslavia to debate and
engage in political activity, and to be exposed to the influence of
working-class and anti-imperialist struggles around the world.
Conditions are more favorable for them to take advantage of these
openings because of the decisive role that workers and farmers played
in the events that led to the toppling of that regime.
Activists in 'Resistance'
None of the existing political currents or organizations, however, has
a perspective, or is seeking in practice, to lead vanguard workers in
that direction. Working people will need to go through further
political experience to develop such a leadership.
Otpor (Resistance), for example, is by all accounts the most widely
known political organization in Serbia that emerged over the last
year. Composed mainly of college and high school students and other
youth, it was founded two years ago by activists in the Students Union
of Yugoslavia and other student organizations. Its leaders say their
membership has reached 40,000 in recent months in some 200 cities
throughout Serbia. Large posters and stickers produced by the group
are visible on highways as well as in the five cities and the rural
Kolubara area that Militant reporters visited.
Otpor campaigned for the resignation of Milosevic, and leading Otpor
activists opposed his chauvinist policies in Kosova as well as the
U.S.-NATO bombing. The group played a prominent role in the protests
that led to Milosevic's resignation. The group officially espouses
pacifist positions.
Four Otpor activists who spoke to Militant reporters October 23 said
that what distinguished it from other student organizations is they
have no official leadership structure. "That's why the police could
not destroy us, even though they arrested 3,000 of our supporters the
last year," said Milos Milenkovic, an economics student at the
University of Belgrade and an Otpor leader.
The group appears to be politically very heterogeneous. Milenkovic
said that since the toppling of Milosevic the axis of the organization
has been shifting toward advocating "a civil and democratic society"--
a statement taken from phrases of the petty-bourgeois opposition that
won the presidential election. Asked if he meant capitalism,
Milenkovic replied that most people in western Europe live better than
those in Yugoslavia and "we should learn from that. We are talking
about a transition towards those societies." He was also unsettled by
the burning of parliament and other "chaotic" acts during the October
5 uprising and said Otpor is asking people to return to the parliament
building items they removed from it that day.
Damir Eres, on the other hand, expressed different views on many
matters, views that appear to be held by a minority in Otpor. Eres, a
medical student in Belgrade, was unequivocal in his opposition to
Washington's intervention in the Balkans, not just the NATO bombing in
Serbia. He condemned proposals by politicians in the imperialist
countries to put Milosevic on trial in The Hague, declaring that only
the people of Yugoslavia can try him for his crimes. He argued for
returning autonomy to Albanians in Kosova, pointing out that the
imperialist troops now occupying Kosova are largely responsible for
sowing divisions between Albanians and Serbs, not just Milosevic's
past actions.
Eres and Milenkovic noted that Otpor today includes youth as well as
some older members who hold a variety of political members who hold a
variety of political viewpoints. The organization includes Socialist
Party members and some supporters or former members of Vojislav
Seselj's Serbian Radical Party--which many people in Belgrade describe
as fascist.
The leadership of the Students Union of Yugoslavia, another major
youth group, has increasingly moved in a social democratic direction.
One of its main activities is maintaining a web site called "Free
Serbia," an operation that now has its own offices in Belgrade and
several dozen employees and volunteers whose efforts are funded from
"donors from abroad, mainly in the European Union and North America,"
as one of its leaders put it.
Since Milosevic's downfall, the Nezavisnost union leadership has also
made more explicit a similar social democratic orientation. One of its
main pieces of literature states that Nezavisnost seeks "the
establishment of the rule of law; genuine multiparty parliamentary
democracy; comprehensive and radical economic reforms based on
privatization, economic efficiency and social justice; [and]
integration of Yugoslavia into the international community." Leaders
of this union who in interviews with the Militant during the NATO
assault made remarks supporting self-determination for Albanians in
Kosova have since retracted or distanced themselves from those
positions.
'We've given them a deadline'
Given the lack of politically organized working-class leadership,
working people pressing for their rights face continuous obstacles and
efforts to push them back. Workers at the Ikarbus bus manufacturing
plant in Zemun, on the outskirts of Belgrade, told the Militant how a
majority of workers in the factory had successfully fought to organize
into Nezavisnost and that the company had been forced to recognize the
union by October 25.
At the entrance of the plant, two notices were posted next to each
other. One was signed by Zoran Gojkovic, president of Samostalni
(Autonomy), the formerly pro-Milosevic trade union. That notice
reported that 304 of the 1,022 workers had left that union, announced
Gojkovic's resignation, and called a meeting to elect new officers
open only to current members. Next to this was a notice by the in-
plant Nezavisnost organizing committee, calling a meeting to discuss
the situation in the plant and workers' demands for better wages and
working conditions. This meeting was open to all workers in the plant,
regardless of union affiliation.
Inside the factory, the company manager acknowledged the formation of
a new union, which he claimed not to oppose. He also said he would
collaborate with whatever union had majority support, and then
declared, "But this hasn't been determined by the courts yet." So the
fight to establish the union continues.
Despite these hurdles, working people in Yugoslavia have gained
greater self-confidence and are using the new atmosphere of political
freedom since October 5 to press their demands.
At Kolubara, a region 60 miles south of Belgrade where most of
Serbia's coal for generation of electrical energy is mined at four
surface pits, miners told the Militant they had not yet disbanded the
strike committee set up when they walked out September 29. That nine-
day political strike by 7,500 miners and the solidarity movement built
around it were central to toppling the bureaucratic regime.
Since the fall of Milosevic, the miners have demanded better wages and
working conditions, after having gone three years without a contract.
They pressed successfully for the resignation of the mine management
and all the officials of the energy ministry who tried to use the
police to break their strike. They are now trying to maintain their
pressure on the Kostunica regime to meet the rest of their demands.
"I hope this new government will be better," said miner Jubisalav
Perisic, during an interview at the entrance of the Field D mine
October 27. "But we've given them a deadline--a few months. We will
not wait for five, eight, or 10 years as we waited for Milosevic, to
get a living wage and decent working conditions."
His comment captured the determination of the miners to press their
demands and to seek greater control over their conditions on the job.
EU road of capitalist penetration
Their comments also indicated that foreign investors and the new
government will not have an easy time convincing them to accept the
privatization of the mines.
Given the continuing depth of popular opposition to the U.S.-led
assault on Yugoslavia, Kostunica and those who share the political
program of the DOS have sought to distance themselves somewhat from
Washington, and are trying to convince working people that the road to
solving the acute economic and social problems is through rapid
integration into the European Union. Large placards with the multistar
symbol of the EU and the slogan "Together Again!"--referring to the
European Union and Yugoslavia--could be seen everywhere Militant
reporters traveled.
In an October 29 statement, Kostunica rejected the call by U.S.
president William Clinton to accept results of local elections in
Kosova, organized under NATO occupation, as legitimate. Kostunica has
maintained much of the nationalist stance of Milosevic toward Kosova,
and his support for the chauvinist leaders of the so-called Bosnian
Serb republic in Bosnia.
The European Union is being utilized increasingly by the imperialist
powers in their goal of capitalist penetration of the workers states
in Eastern and Central Europe--including Yugoslavia--and the former
Soviet Union.
The French government of President Jacques Chirac and EU officials
announced October 27 the imminent signing of an agreement with Moscow
to purchase large amounts of oil, natural gas, and electricity from
Russia in exchange for investments by capitalist concerns in the
corresponding Russian industries.
This announcement coincided with Kostunica's visit to Moscow, during
which Russian president Vladimir Putin said that country's natural gas
company will soon restart gas deliveries to Yugoslavia. The supply had
been cut during Milosevic's reign after Belgrade failed to pay a $300
million bill.
"The most critical problem we face right now is how to survive the
next few weeks," said Mladin Dinkic, one of Kostunica's economic
advisers who accompanied him to Moscow. "People are already blaming us
for what is going on." Yugoslavia faces its most serious energy crisis
ever, these officials said.
At the same time, the military deployment of U.S. troops in the
Balkans--surrounding the current Yugoslavia, from Macedonia to Kosova
and Bosnia--remains the foundation on which Washington has
strengthened its military and economic domination in Europe since the
early 1990s. U.S. imperialism intends to use this strength as a club
towards accomplishing its long-term goal of weakening and eventually
overthrowing the workers state in Yugoslavia.
EU leaders have assailed recent statements by supporters of Republican
presidential candidate George W. Bush suggesting that if elected he
would curtail the U.S. government's military presence in the Balkans.
The reactions came in response to statements by Condoleeza Rice,
Bush's foreign policy adviser, who said Washington should focus on
military operations in the Middle East and Asia and turn over
"peacekeeping" missions such as the one in the Balkans to the European
powers.
The October 24 Washington Post quoted an unnamed ambassador from an EU
country as saying, "Once you allow NATO members to pick and choose
their operations, then where does it all end? The integrated military
command could soon fall apart, and so would the alliance."
European imperialist powers now account for 80 percent of the 65,000
NATO troops deployed in the Balkans. But these powers are reluctant to
see the U.S. government cut back its 11,400 troops there, which
literally represent a military machine more powerful and swift-acting
than the forces of all the other powers put together.
The recent actions by working people in Yugoslavia are one more reason
to make finance capital more nervous.
---------
Argiris Malapanis is a meat packer in Miami. Bobbis Misailidis is an
airport worker in Athens, Greece. Catharina Tirsén, a member of the
Metalworkers union in Stockholm, Sweden, and George Skoric, a student
in Belgrade, contributed to this article.
Related article:
Balkan wars: product of capitalist breakdown
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