The Strike in Magyar Szo

Waiting for Mesic

It is very hard to find an acceptable explanation that would absolve the government of blame for the fact that the Forum publishing house has been without management for several months and for the carelessness it has shown in resolving problems, albeit inherited, in other media organizations

AIM Belgrade, August 2, 2001

Employees of the Magyar Szo newspaper had an opportunity to personally discover just how serious the government was when it claimed that nobody could force it to give them money for salaries by going on strike. The people working in the only Hungarian-language newspaper in Yugoslavia, after last week's warning strike intended to back up their demands for 100 percent increases in their meager salaries (DM150 on average), succeeded in doing nothing. At least when money is concerned.

They are four letters richer, having received that letters from readers supporting their demands, one from a non-government organization. Not including support from their fellow journalists, no political party or prominent politician responded to their pleas. These results are a paradox of sorts, given that Magyar Szo is not just the sole paper of the Hungarian ethnic community, but also the only state-run newspaper that over the past 12 years refused to serve the Milosevic regime, and has paid the price. In this light a statement by provincial information secretary Rafailo Ruskovski that "the demands are funny, since under Milosevic they used to receive 800 dinars (less than DM30) and kept their mouth shut" is rather incomprehensible. The journalists themselves cannot remember how many times they have gone on strike, and what publicity their strikes always received, except under the new, democratic government.

It seems that Oct. 5 marked the beginning of a story about paradoxes, lack of patience and great expectations. It is true that last week's warning strike had as its only official demand that Magyar Szo's founder -- the Vojvodina Assembly -- double salaries, as chairman of the striking committee, Zoltan Nemet, said. But it is also true that many words were used to explain the employees' wish to free themselves from the embrace of the Forum publishing house. The paper's staff have been warning for years that it will be able to survive only as an independent company, in charge of its own funds, because as it is, subsidies granted to Forum by the founder are not distributed justly. The fate of the only Yugoslav daily in Hungarian cannot depend on whether Forum's printing press is performing well or not, or making money, says the acting editor in chief, Erzebet Juhas Marjanov, adding that Forum is in an uncertain position and could pull the paper down.

The editorial staff sent to the paper's founder a project on turning Magyar Szo into a separate, public company at the beginning of summer. Although there were indications there would be some progress, the Vojvodina Assembly did not debate the matter, because the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians requested that a decision be postponed.

This is why amidst a general mood favoring "either independence, or nothing" the demands of the strikers, reduced to higher salaries, can be interpreted more as an expression of displeasure and disappointment, although a raise, of course, would be welcome. After all, the employees already made their firm demand for an independent company last spring, and under threat of strike. In addition to applying for two times higher subsidies and requesting that all its newsstands be returned to Magyar Szo, the project indeed does not offer any firm guarantees that the paper will perform better if it is in charge of distributing the subsidies.

Secretary Ruskovski explained that the provincial treasury simply does not have the funds to increase the salaries, although at the beginning of the year there was enough to approve raises for provincial officials. Vojvodina obviously does not have enough money to support provincial institutions, but that is another story, about Vojvodina's competence and autonomy. Ruskovski, however, was right in claiming that as opposed to the previous regime, the new government was paying subsidies regularly and that the latest payment was 44 percent higher. He said the paper's request for independence was justified, but the manner in which the employees planned to carry that out -- by simply leaving Forum, without properly splitting the property or observing the law -- was unacceptable.

It is a fact, however, that Magyar Szo cannot survive in Forum, because it has been left for months now without either a director or a managing board -- officials who should initiate reorganization. After the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians at the beginning of the year, in response to criticism from the Forum of Vojvodina Hungarian Intellectuals, withdrew its representatives from the managing board, where they accounted for one-half of the members including the position of acting director, no new members were appointed. A failed attempt last spring to replace them with people from other political parties and bodies recalled again that the group of some 30 intellectuals was right when it said: "It is unacceptable for the freedom of the media to be a matter of bargaining between political parties."

The Forum company, whose reorganization has been a matter of theoretical debates for months, has no management and only one deputy to a non-existing director. The house's supervisory board has been warning the Vojvodina Assembly in vain that the situation is legally untenable, and it occurred to no one, that from a strictly legal viewpoint, the term of office of the acting editors in chief in the provincial media outlets has expired.

In such a mixture of inactivity, delay, and indolence it is difficult not to accept as valid what the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians said when it demanded, amidst general disappointment in the paper, that resolving the issue of Magyar Szo's separation be delayed by the end of September. It explained that such a decisive move in a house that is traditionally considered one of the key Vojvodina Hungarian institutions, is too serious to be carried out without wider consultations. "Having much understanding for the demands of the Magyar Szo employees, it is our obligation as a political party representing the interests of this ethnic community, to thoroughly review the future of the publishing of books, children and youth magazines, and consider what should be done with the other segments of the house, because it is not only Magyar Szo that is at stake here," says the party vice president, Laslo Joza.

Except for what he said, there is no other acceptable justification for the indolence shown by the Vojvodina Assembly and the authorities in regard to the fact that Forum has been deprived of management for several months and for their casual attitude in dealing with numerous problems in this and other media houses. And while there are few whispers about the possible political goals and intentions behind the whole matter, the Forum printers were the only ones who reacted energetically. At the beginning of summer they said the following to the public: "Political bargaining and the illegal and immoral assault on Forum continues unabated. It is being carried out by the former opposition parties which, taking advantage of the privileges granted to them by the Socialist Party of Serbia and the Yugoslav Left in the past, are using all available means -- from lies to divisions of the spheres of interest, economic sectors and branches, as well as certain institutions and companies -- and in violation of the law are pursuing only their own, selfish interests."

This, however, also failed in producing results, and did not disturb the founders one bit. This confirmed the suspicions of a not too numerous group in Magyar Szo, of whom some said more radical methods than a warning were needed and some, members of an independent trade union, were against striking in the first place. They both said that one week of strike was not going to solve the problem, and the message is the following: we are still far from transition in the media sector, and the government, in fact, does not have a clear idea of what public interests should be, and even less money.

Meanwhile, the Magyar Szo journalists announced how they plan to make their cause work: to find a Mesic and appoint him to the top position in the publishing house, whatever that is supposed to mean.

Zuzana Serences

(AIM)