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-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 16, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------

ZASTAVA PLANT: WORKERS VS. PRIVATIZATION

Thousands of workers at the Zastava plant in Kragujevac, 
Yugoslavia, brought traffic to a halt July 19 when they 
rallied to protest plans to privatize their factory, the 
biggest in Yugoslavia. Tens of thousands face losing their 
jobs.

Sometimes all the currents of globalism converge on one 
factory, one town, one country. In 1999, when NATO bombed 
Yugoslavia for refusing to give up socialism and knuckle 
under to imperialism's military domination, the huge Zastava 
factory was one NATO target. The auto plant produced the 
Yugo automobile, weapons, and airplanes for the national 
airline, JAT.

When NATO attacked Zastava, the workers in the city of 
Kragujevac went to their factory and protected it with their 
bodies. Many were injured in the NATO bombing.

They considered it their factory--not just a place of work 
but their property.

Under the Socialist Party-led Milosevic government, by law 
workers were allocated 60 percent of the shares in the 
factory. The state controlled the other 40 percent.

When the new government of Vojislav Kostunica and Zoran 
Djinjic took power after the October 2000 coup, the first 
thing it did was privatize state property. Seventy percent 
of the Zastava shares were to be sold to private investors.

Of course, the U.S. government and its representatives knew 
Yugoslavs would resent the privatization schemes because 
they would cost jobs. The AFL-CIO and the National Endowment 
for Democracy helped create Nezavisnost, a labor union 
friendly to an International Monetary Fund "restructuring 
plan."

More than one labor union represents the Zastava workers. 
But most of the workers were in the left and socialist Trade 
Union Confederation of Serbia.

"After the DOS-NATO coup, Djindjic promised that no worker 
would be fired; DOS cheated workers and workers now feel 
abused," said Darko Nadic, writing from Yugoslavia. DOS 
refers to Democratic Opposition of Serbia, the public 
relations name created for the right wing.

Downsizing the Zastava factory will hit the left union 
members hardest. The DOS/NATO government is selling off "the 
country's most valuable state-owned assets," according to 
Privatization Minister Alexsandar Vlahovic.

With the cash from these sales, the government will 
compensate the "pre-1945" owners of these properties--which 
would include Nazi collaborators. OPAH, a pro-privatization 
Yugoslav investment consultant firm, acknowledges that 27 
percent of the Yugoslav work force is unemployed because of 
the bombing of Yugoslavia's industry and the privatization 
program.

For Zastava, globalization means NATO bombs, the IMF, 
privatization, downsizing, unemployment, cheap labor, union 
busting and anti-worker governments. Despite attempts by 
company unions to sell out the workers, Zastava now displays 
one more hallmark of globalization: resistance.
 --H.C.

- END -

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