Deindustrijalizacija i radnički otpor - Pokret za slobodu

to open branches of foreign banks (none of which had a developmentalfunction). [i]This [financial reform] was supported by the IMF andthe World Bank and implemented by the IMF's domestic cadres. Thesecadres [like Mladjan Dinkic] have been permanent fixtures in everySerbian government [since October 2000]. Domestic industry, alreadyshaken up by 10 years crisis [in the 1990s], suddenly found itself withouta source of favorable credit.The state has shown little interest in maintaining production inthose enterprises that employ a large number of workers. Receipts fromthe sale of factories were used to fill the state-budget and purchase socialpeace, while enabling a favorable infrastructure for foreign investorsto be created so that they could engage in green-field investmentsin the newly opened 'free zones'. These 'free zones' are characterizedby working conditions that offer minimal pay, thereby allowing foreigninvestors to use cheap-labour (which is cynically called our 'comparativeadvantage' by local neoliberal economists).Currently there is a marked increase in labour protests largely dueto the non-payment of wages and benefits, or because of layoffs, etc.Workers are increasingly demanding from the [Serbian] PrivatizationAgency put an end to a spate of bad privatization deals. In fact, thisAgency is the best evidence that the new 'democratic' authorities totallyretained the model of a centralized state from the communist period,since they now need this apparatus to introduce neoliberal reforms.That is to say, this type of Agency is an integral part of the state whereversuch massive privatizations occur. Such a powerful state agencyhas never exist in Serbia (regardless of which Empire ruled in the region!).Of course, it was precisely such a strong Privatization Agency thatwas needed to secure the ultimate goal - to allow new private ownersto purge these newly acquired assets of their workers, while retainingownership over all the plant, capital and land of these factories. Theycould then either sell or rent this newly 'freed' space to other businesses.In this way they were able to create a high-rate of unemployment, creatingan important precondition for 'green-field' investments. Workershave taken to pointing out the persistent involvement of the PrivatizationAgency's functionaries in such criminal activities that have drivenmany factories to ruin [often in direct violation of the stipulations regulatingtheir privatization]. However, the [current legal] system is setup in such a way that the Agency is always right, and even when it hasclearly failed to uphold the law [everyone knows that] nothing will hap-343