Privatization and social conflicts in the field of work in (post-)socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

This paper fo cuses on social conflicts in the field of work during the privatization processes in Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia and its successor states, including Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the, often dubious, privatization processes, large industrial complexes and leading socially owned companies were dismantled, broken into pieces and sold or bankrupted. For majority of workers, considered as builders, ?owners? and drivers of the companies during the socialist era, privatization resulted in job loss, impoverishment, and dispossession of ownership and of the opportunity to work at companies they considered as ?their own?. Based on the multiple case studies, I analyse workers? narratives on privatization processes, including the role of workers and unions in those processes. Triangulating the data collected from the factory newspapers, media, available archives and documents, including interviews with (former) workers of three industrial complexes (Rudi Cajavec, Energoinvest and Aluminij), research results show narratives of privatization as theft, powerlessness of workers within these processes, politics of fear, as well as workers? disunity. Research results also show that the strategies and tactics used by political, ethno-national and economic elites to pacify workers? uprising and union actions, resulted in shattering the workers? organized actions, division of workers and union fragmentation.