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NEWS & LETTERS, May 2004Historic Kosova miners' strike, 15 years afterMitrovica, Kosova--Liz Leicester, from Camden UNISON, and myself were invited by the Kosova miners’ union to attend a meeting commemorating the 15th anniversary of the Kosova miners’ underground strike. The meeting was later cancelled. Several thousand non-working miners were threatening to protest, and the meeting organizers were scared that any commemoration of 1989 could ignite mass protests. I was very surprised that I was invited to do an interview on Belgrade radio. In a half hour interview I talked about Milosevic’s role in the war in Bosnia, about Tuzla’s struggle against ethnic division and about my visit to Kosova in 1996. The journalist asked me about the 1989 Kosova miners’ strike. He was clearly surprised that the main demand of the Albanian miners had been the defense of the Yugoslav constitution against Milosevic’s nationalism. In 1974 Tito had given Kosova the same status as the other Federal Republics. The miners went on hunger strike when Milosevic tore up this constitution and re-incorporated Kosova into Serbia. I told the journalist that the Kosova Albanian miners were the last workers to try to defend Yugoslavia. The Kosova miners who visited Durham miners in 1990 warned that if Milosevic were not stopped, Yugoslavia would explode. Leaders of all the other Republics supported Milosevic’s attack on Kosova. They hoped that his nationalist appetite would be satisfied. As one Kosova miner told me, Yugoslavia died with Tito--proof of it was when no other Yugoslav workers supported the Kosova miners’ strike. DIVIDED MITROVICA The bus to North Mitrovica stops a few meters from a bridge in the middle of town. I get off and head for the bridge for South Mitrovica. Anyone can cross this bridge, but apart from UN personnel virtually no one crosses on foot. This is the dividing line between the Serb and Albanian populations. All the land north of the river, all the way to Serbia proper, is inhabited by Serbs--no Albanians. This was not the way it used to be, but the way it has ended up after the war with people driven from their homes. Trepca was one of the biggest Yugoslav industrial concerns, and it dominates Mitrovica. Rather, the spirit of the miners dominates it, very much like Tuzla in Bosnia. It is a workers’ town. The Trepca company mineral mines are dotted across Kosova and Serbia. Mining has gone on from pre-Roman times, but industrialized mining was begun by a British company in the 1930s at the Stari Turg (Old Town) mine just outside Mitrovica. When I first visited Stari Turg in 1996, I had to do so under cover of darkness. All Albanian miners had been sacked after the protests in 1989 and 1990. On my second visit in 1999 the miners were still locked out. Four years after the NATO intervention, no production has taken place. About 1,150 people have returned to work in the south of Kosova and a similar number in the north--about 30% of the old workforce. In the south, 2,750 people have accepted early retirement (on a pension of 35 Euros a month, while the union is pushing for 79 Eu), and 3,000 are waiting to return to work. The average pay of those working is 200 Euros a month. The celebrations we had been invited to were cancelled, but the miners commemorated their history in their own way by having a mass meeting to discuss the problems of the non-working people. There had been a strike last September. The working people had gone on strike in support of the non-workers. Now a resolution to do the same again was being discussed. WORKING VERSUS NON-WORKING There is great solidarity but also friction between the working and non-working men. Those working fear strike action will jeopardize the planned resumption of production but they stick by their fellow miners. In the end a strike is averted by a management promise to try to do something by the end of March. They hope health checks will ease the situation. In the main processing factory a new health centre for Trepca workers is examining all workers to see who is fit to work, as well as treating all ailments. After this process it will examine all non-working people. So far, 110 of 380 workers have been found unfit to work and will be pensioned off (35 Euros a month). The union was formed after the strike -- in 1990. The president of Trepca miners, Ismet Behrami, explains that there are now two Trepca companies: One has its HQ in Belgrade (Milosevic took state control of Trepca in preparation for privatization) and one headed by a German. The miners are in favor of privatization, as all around them they see that the only firms that operate are the ones that have been privatized. But no one will buy or invest in Trepca as long as the ownership is disputed. The mineral reserves are large and there are good markets for the ores. But while all the arguments go on, most of the miners live in destitution. We met with the Bahri Shabani, president of the Union of Independent Unions of Kosova (UIUK). Himself a former Trepca employee, Shabani is currently involved in big battles over privatization. As he explained, over the last 15 years many people in Kosova were unemployed. Those who actually have had jobs are middle aged and unlikely to get new jobs. The UIUK is fighting for compulsory collective agreements with the private sector and an agreed pension for all those over 50 who have been employed by publicly owned companies. With unemployment at between 60% and 70% in Kosova and an average age of 28 years old, there are few jobs for this young population, a major challenge for the trade unions. GOAL OF MULTI-ETHNIC KOSOVA The vague hope for better things centers around this perspective of an independent Kosova--and always expressed as a multi-ethnic Kosova. But this hope has great obstacles: Great Power opposition to an independent Kosova, and the fact that in Serbia the ultra-nationalists are gaining power. No politician in Serbia would dare express support for independence. Indeed, just after my visit the new Serbian PM, Kosturnica, called for the division of Kosova and incorporation of the Serbian areas into Serbia. The Serbian population in Kosova is the most ultra-nationalist of all, but those who aren’t would open their mouths at their peril. Over and over we are told that all are welcome to return, to live freely, except those who committed crimes. The Roma, those tragic people, were used by the Serbian authorities to do their dirty work. But I saw Roma women and children in Mitrovica not getting a second glance. Serb villages to the south of Mitrovica were guarded and protected by UN troops last time I was here. Now the troops are gone. No one bothers the inhabitants. --Bob Myers |
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