FIET Central and Eastern Europe
22 February 1999
FIET Trade Union Solidarity
Project in Bosnia and Herzegovina
The FIET Commerce Home Page
Athens: FIET continues dialogue with Serbian trade unions
The dialogue between the Serbian trade union movement and FIET continues. At a meeting in Athens, Greece organised by FIET-affiliated finance trade union OTOE and its education institution INE on 17 - 18 February, discussions were held with two different bank workers' unions. FIET was represented by jan Furstenborg, head of department for Central and Eastern Europe and Alex Rüdig, project director for the region. They were joined by Dimitris Tsoukalas, vice president of OTOE and member of the Euro-FIET executive committee, and Aristoteles Lakkas, president of INE and member of FIET's international project committee for Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Athens talks were a follow up to a FIET mission to Serbia some months ago.
The two Serbian trade unions represent the workers in the state bank and the workers in commercial banks and insurance companies, respectively. They are both autonomous unions, which means that they are not members of the official trade union confederation.
The "Autonomous Union of the Employees of Banks, Insurance Organisations and Other Financial Organisations of Serbia" was established in 1991. Before that, the finance employees were part of the public workers' trade union. The finance union now reports a membership of 35,000, in 110 trade union locals. Its president Milan Alempievic told the FIET representatives that they are not part of the Serbian trade union confederation, but are instead intensifying their co-operation with other independent unions.
The "National Bank of Yugoslavia Employees Union" reports 12,000 members and is affiliated to the "Association of Autonomous Trade Unions of Yugoslavia", which is part of the official trade union structures. The president of this union is Smilja Milojevic and its secretary is Dusan Cacic.
In the discussions and at the OTOE-INE Conference which the Serbian unionists participated in, the FIET representatives underlined the need to respect and actively promote the basic values of the free and democratic trade union movement. They underlined the need for the Serbian trade unions to take a more direct responsibility for promoting peace, democracy and tolerance in a troubled region, even if their situation is difficult. Adherence to and active support for these values is a condition for a closer co-operation with and eventual integration into the international trade union movement, they said. It is not possible for a trade union to withdraw from reality when human rights are at stake.
Both the FIET representatives and the leaders of the two Serbian unions stressed the need to continue the dialogue. If the international situation, and particularly the situation in Kosovo allows it, the next meeting will be held in Belgrade before the summer.
Our e-mail address is: jan_furstenborg@fiet.org