Professional paper
’’Whose are We Here in Slavonia?’’: 1988 Workers' Strike in Borovo in the Context of Austerity Measures qnd the Rise of Nationalism in the SFRY
Snježana Ivčić
orcid.org/0000-0002-5036-5361
; Fakultet političkih znanosti Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Doktorski studij ‘Politologija’, smjer Javne politike i razvoj
Martina Nekić
; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Antropologija i filozofija, 4. godina preddiplomskog studija
Jasna Račić
orcid.org/0000-0002-7751-1795
; Hrvatski studiji Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Sociologija, 2. godina diplomskog studija
Abstract
The present study is a part of a larger body of research addressing the decisive moment that has seen strike actions taking place in the second half of the 1980s in Yugoslavia assume a nationalist imprint (character). Specifically, it aims to articulate the way in which strikes started to tie in with nationalism and present the implications of this shift from class to national (or ethnic) struggle on the war that soon followed. The position in which Yugoslavia found itself towards the end of the 1980s, as well as the strike action taking place in the Vukovarian ’’Borovo’’, are problematized in the research under two contextual lenses : the internal politico-economic organisation and the international position of the SFRY. The 5th July 1988 strike that took place in Borovo has been taken as an exemplary case in the outset of the research. From the results of the research it emerged that, despite the workers' efforts to solve their problems with the aid of federal institutions, given the already lost trust in the republic and factory leadership, in the long run they have been obliged to turn back to the republican level.Under the requirements imposed by the IMF, the political and trade union leadership enforced austerity measures and at the same time tried, at least professedly, to meet the demands of the workers, striving in this manner for an unobtainable position. The strike in ’’Borovo’’ did not entail any kind of nationalist imprint, nonetheless it is considered as a point of reference for the events that followed. Namely, occurrences that tried to manipulate workers' strikes on nationalist grounds were starting to come into view at the time. These results suggest the need for further exploration of the present as well as other similar workers' strikes.
Keywords
’Borovo’’; economic crisis; nationalism; strike; trade unions; Yugoslavia
Hrčak ID:
129203
URI
Publication date:
30.5.2014.
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