SEVEN-YEAR LONG STRIKE

Unemployment as a Political Category

AIM Pristina, 28 October, 1997

Back in 1990, not a small number of workers of Albanian ethnic origin expressed their discontent by strike. They were sacked for it, and they nowadays believe that their return to factories will not depend on how their demands will be resolved, but on the political climate. There are other categories of about 70 thousand workers who lodged complaints against decisions of receivership management in enterprises about termination of their employment. After seven years, their dossiers are covered with dust of oblivion in courts in Nis, Kragujevac and other cities of Serbia.

Almost 14 months have passed since Dr Ibrahim Rugova and Slobodan Milosevic signed the agreement on normalisation of the situation in education in Albanian language. At the time it was believed that this would also somehow solve the problem of almost 23 thousand Albanian teachers who are teaching in privately-owned houses for almost four years. The agreement has not been implemented, which reconfirms doubts among Kosovo Albanians that Serbian authorities are not inclined to solve the burning problems in Kosovo by agreements.

And what will become of 150 thousand workers sacked from jobs? Will they be returned to work by some agreement or will it be resolved in court, or will another, more difficult possibility be sought?! Nobody can answer this question for the time being, but it is a fact that just a small number of the Albanians found employment or returned to work in the past seven years.

About one thousand workers of the Urosevac tube factory, who are ethnic Albanians, went on strike in January 1990 in protest of coercive measures introduced by the municipal assembly. The strike inside the factory lasted for almost three weeks, and then the factory gate was locked. Lists of workers who could return to work were put up, but not a single worker used the opportunity. After a couple of weeks, they were all issued notice of discharge, when they decided to lodge a collective appeal to the still existing court of associated labour in Pristina. There were two hearings, and then everything was interrupted. The cases were sent to addresses of courts in various cities of Serbia, and the workers received summons for a hearing only once, but refused to respond.

President of the independent trade union association, once a worker of the battery industries, Agim Hairizi, speaks about almost identical destiny of his colleagues. In October 1990, they went on strike, and after a few days they were forbidden to enter the factory grounds. They continued their strike in front of the gate until police dispersed them. "It is interesting", Hairizi stresses, "that we received notice of dismissal four months later. It seems that this was done on purpose, because in this way we were deprived of every possibility to seek justice in court". He says that out of 150 thousand Albanians who were discharged from work, almost half or 70 thousand of them lodged complaints, but just a few of them won the cases in court. "There were cases when they have never even been summoned to hearings, which means that hearings have not been scheduled at all. There were cases when we found summons on rubbish-heaps or thrown out in the street. Even the post office either did not want to or was instructed not to carry out its obligation", says Hairizi.

According to the data of this trade union, only a few physicians and mediacl workers have returned to work, but there are no precise data. Probably because, as it is believed here, this is just a case of political marketing, and not the intention to have the judiciary in Serbia seriously deal with this question. A small number of administrative workers of Feronikl factory from Glogovac were returned to work by court decisions, while most of them are still waiting for court decisions. Engineer Murat Mehai claims that there were absurd cases in which, for example, some workers who were on forced leave were dismissed because they failed to pick up their salaries for months. "This was a sufficient indication for the receivership to reach the conclusion that these workers did not have the wish to return to work", says Mehai. President of the trade union of medical workers, Xhafer Hiseni, explains that in hospitals or other medical institutions there have been no cases of massive return of sacked workers. "A certain number of those who were either on sick leave or vacation or on specialization outside Pristina were returned to work. It is also possible that here and there a specialist returned, but this does not mean that one can speak of employment of the Albanians".

Destan Rukiqi, lawyer from Pristina, has a specific experience with court cases concerning return of workers to work. He remembers well the case of three workers from the municipal service in Pristina who were returned to work, but who have not received reimbursement for years. The case of ten workers of the leather and shoe factory in Pec is a good illustration. Rukiqi says that they were discharged from work because they had participated in the strike, and after they lodged appeal to the court they received a "curious sentence": only five of them were returned to work.

Secretary of the Union of Independent Lawyers Adil Fetahu explains that "Serb courts deal with in such cases from the political and not the legal aspect. Even when somebody is returned to work, it is mostly physical workers and not qualified cadre". This is illustrated by the case of the workers from Pec when only drivers and physical workers were returned to work, but not the executives. Lawyer Nakibe Kelmendi adds that even if the court reaches a decision in favour of the workers, it usually cannot implement it because even an ordinary clerk is "more powerful" than the law. She gives the example of the case of a physician who is still without a job although he has favourable decisions of the court, but the director of the hospital has put a "veto on this case".

Slobodan Milosevic, now president of Yugoslavia, on the occasion of his visit to Kosovska Mitrovica, said that "a large number of the Albanians works here". Although this was said quite a long time ago, the situation in Trepca is unchanged - there are almost no ethnic Albanian workers, except in plants in Djakovica, Pec, Vucitrn and Gnjilane. Agim Hairizi, who has worked for years in the Trepca Complex, and who is well acquainted with the situation in this former gigantic industrial complex, says that regardless of the fact that there is a permanently open public competition for 2,000 workers, the number of the Albanians who have applied is negligible and that there is not a single former worker among them. The fact that for some time workers from Montenegro and Serbia worked here shows that it constantly lacks manpower for operation of the manufacturing process, but they too soon gave up, as well as a small number of Bulgarians, Poles and two Swedes, because the promises given to them had never been met.

A few days ago, it was published in the local daily Jedinstvo in Serbian, which is close to the Serbian regime, that Trepca is seeking the workers in Kragujevac. Nobody responded to the invitation.

The case of the electric company of Kosovo is characteristic, because it continued employing the Albanians after 1990. Three or four years ago, an experiment was made and a public competition for employment at the strip mine in Belacevac was announced. And the trade union of the sacked Albanian workers accepted the "challenge" and allowed the workers to apply. However, since the number of open jobs was much smaller than the number of those who used to work at the mine, a chaotic situation was created, workers quarrelled about who would apply. Bairam Xhonbalay, associate in the trade union association explains that such situations occur whenever public competitions for new workers are announced. A couple of months ago, a public competition was announced for 40 workers at the strip mine and one thousand Albanians were interested. In the end out of 180 who actually applied, only nine were Albanians.

Because of such attitude towards the Albanians who apply for jobs in public competitions, it is believed that ethnic cleansing is still under way. Highly educated Albanians are dismissed and physical workers employed. The electric company still has a permanently open competition for the Serbs, Montenegrins, especially refugees from Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina. Seven years ago, the Albanians formed 66.11 per cent of the total number of the employed, and now there are only 49 per cent of them.

In the search of the answer to the question why the Albanians apply for jobs at public competitions announced by the electric company of Kosovo, and not for jobs in Trepca although the complex in Kosovska Mitrovica is in a much worse position than the company in Pristina, our interlocutors think that such a decision is probably influenced by the fact that quite a few Albanians already work in the electric company, that the conditions for work are much better there than in the mines of Trepca, and that the salaries are higher. In any case, every new employment of the Albanians is against the will of the independent trade union association of Kosovo. Its membership constantly appeals that jobs of 150 thousand sacked Albanian workers should not be taken...

AIM Pristina

Ibrahim REXHEPI