Serbian Workers Strike over Arms Company Privatisation

The Union Organisation of Zastava Arms said that the company's 2,000 workers will go on a one-day strike on Wednesday to demand exemption from privatisation and protest against poor working conditions.

"We are asking that our factory is exempt from the sale," union president Dragan Ilic told BIRN, adding that there is currently no dialogue to resolve the issue with the company's management.

Workers are also asking for an exemption from the state-imposed salary reduction in the public sector, and for improvement in their safety conditions.

"We have very complex technology, different kinds of processing that release harmful matter, mostly chemicals, dust... There is not enough ventilation, protective clothes and shoes," Ilic said.

The announced strike comes after several weeks of protests by the Zastava workers, whose union claims that privatisation could endanger their factory, which they say is of "strategic importance" to the state.

The Serbian parliament passed a law earlier this month aiming to partially privatise the lucrative defence industry, whose export contracts in 2017 were reportedly worth $888 million, and also allows foreign investors to buy a share of up to 49 per cent in the country's weapons companies.

The authorities argue that private capital is necessary in order to modernise Serbia's defense industry, bringing in new technologies and equipment.

"The state does not have the money to invest into creating all that technology, so we need to attract capital - domestic or foreign," Assistant Defence Minister Nenad Miloradovic told the Serbian national broadcaster, RTS.

Military expert Aleksandar Radic agreed, saying that privatisation is "probably justified" because Serbian factories use outdated...