Deindustrijalizacija i radnički otpor - Pokret za slobodu

property.” It was thus a really good idea to try to prevent the collapse ofthe economy by offering workers a private stake in what had previouslybeen "everybody’s, but at the same time nobody's" (Serbian. 'svačije aliničije').Markovic’s move at the time was known as the “cold shower”, butfrom today’s point of view his approach to privatization can be read asa particular response to the most pressing question concerning postcommunistYugoslavia’s democratization: how to salvage a future forworkers self-management from the dead-end fate awaiting the onepartystate? Indeed, increasing worker ACTIVISM during the late ‘80s,in the form of countless strikes and demonstrations all over the country,became a serious threat to the ruling party (especially in an internationalcontext were communist regimes were collapsing throughoutEastern Europe). In order to maintain their power, party bureaucratsin the republics decided to change their political tune into that of nationalism.And anyway, do not the dreams of establishing ‘greater’ nationalstate demand ‘great’ national capitalists, and not small worker-shareholdersrunning the economy?The rest as they say was history and Marković’s approach to privatizationwas superseded by others in all of the ex-Yugoslav republics.In Serbia, Slobodan Milošević used the economic crisis and hyperinflationof 1993 as an excuse to annul Marković’s privatization. Anotherlaw that reduced the number of shares Serbia’s workers could expectwas adopted in 1995 with the support of Serbia’s then opposition (nowruling) Democratic Party. It is worth noting, that this was the only caseduring the 1990s in which Milošević’s Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS)and Zoran Đinđić’s Democratic Party voted the same way.A second privatization law was adopted in Serbia in 1997. Again,this privatization wasn’t mandatory and again the decision to privatize‘socially owned’ enterprises ultimately lay with the enterprisesown Assemblies. However, this time again, only a portion of the newlyreleased shares were offered to those working in the newly privatizedenterprises. For the first time, the state also received rights to its ownshare of socially owned property under the 1997 law. According to thislaw, the Republic of Serbia could acquire 30% of the company’s shares.The remaining 70% was on offer not only to the workers of the companybut also to other employed citizens who couldn't acquire sharesin their own firms because their firms couldn’t be privatized (i.e. thisapplied mostly to those working in the public sector – including at hos-318