Lefteast
All around Bosnia-Herzegovina, ordinary citizens are mobilizing to fight industrial developments threatening to damage, or have already destroyed, parts of the environment where they live. There are the stirrings of a widespread movement to protect the environment in numerous local situations around the country. Environmental resistance has the potential to create what could become the […]
Tens of thousands of workers are currently employed in factories in the Baia Mare area. Most factories are greenfield projects, while old industrial sites in Baia Mare have been abandoned. Most employees working in furniture, mattresses, clothing and footwear producing factories receive a minimum wage for full-time work. The young and “disciplined” employees manage to supplement their minimum wage by working overtime or doing additional shifts, depending on the employer’s needs. Some resort to seasonal work abroad in order to ensure their families’ survival. The factories in question are a precarious link within the capitalist circuit, operating as outsourced factories for large Western companies – the largest by production volume and number of employees being Ikea. The experience of managers and workers in these factories shows how factories and employees alike are in an extremely vulnerable and volatile position. Their bargaining power is minimal, while constant concessions are essential for survival.
Note from LeftEast editors: Vladimir Unkovski-Korica joins up the dots as mass struggles from below kick off in the Balkans. It is the third text in a series of interventions LeftEast will publish on the eco uprising in Serbia.This article is published in collaboration with Counterfire. Several small amendments were made by the author. Just weeks after […]
Note from the LeftEast editors: this piece has been published in cooperation with the Serbo-Croatian Left portal Bilten.Org. Nobody could have expected before the sixties that a tiny and a large country, 7000 thousands kilometers apart, the Popular Republic of Albania and the People’s Republic of China would forge a strong political alliance based […]