Deindustrijalizacija i radnički otpor - Pokret za slobodu

New Rounds of Enclosure and Resistance:Fighng Notes from "Transional" SerbiaInterview with Pokret za Slobodu (Freedom FightMovement)AG: Freedom Fight collective, or Pokret za Slobodu in Yugoslav,is a member of the Coordination Committee of WorkersProtest in Serbia. What is the news from below? One ofthe goals of Freedom Fight, of Pokret, is to help create a horizontal,prefigurative, self-managed structure that wouldallow for a genuine workers self-activity - solidarity unionism.What is the reality of rank and file workers resistance,and what is the relationship with the old, vertical unionstructures?Let me begin by asking about the last round of privatizationin Serbia. What used to be called in the state-socialistsystem of former Yugoslavia, "socially owned property," isbeing enclosed and privatized. How advanced is this processof "privatization through bankruptcy" at the moment?And at the risk of sounding legalistic, how legal is this processof accumulation by dispossession?FF: The privatization of socially owed property is almost completelydone. The few big structures that remain are now turned into stateenterprises, like the Bor complex (mines and mining industry) or thearms industry in Čačak, Užice, Kragujevac and so on. There are alsosome mid-level and small socially owed companies that are still notprivatized, and last year the government decided simply to liquidatethem. This liquidation is not based on economic reasons - it is a completelypolitical decision to shut down all the remaining socially owedcompanies. The Ministry of Economy calls it “privatization throughbankruptcy.” The decision is absolutely illegal. Serbian law on bankruptcyproscribes the causes for starting the liquidation process, andthe government’s order to kill an otherwise well-doing company justbecause it is socially owed is not one of them. This decision was a causefor several protests last year, and the strongest group of workers whoare still fighting is the one in Ravanica from Ćuprija. Last summer itsworkers blocked the factory to prevent the government’s people from354