Strikes and Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The current crisis has hit workers in Bosnia and Herzegovina especially hard. The inflation rate as of September is 16.8%, the highest of all ex-Yugoslav states. Analysis done by the Union of Trade Unions of Bosnia and Herzegovina tells us that the minimum wage covers only 19% of the cost of living and that the average wage covers only 38% of it. The crisis of course led to a modest but not negligible resumption in class struggle.

Healthworkers

Over 5000 healthcare workers in Tuzla Canton had started a general strike demanding wage increase from 2.51 KM/h ($1.25/hr) to 2.81 KM/h ($1.40/hr). This strike resumes one that was held in May where the government had at first agreed to demands but later opted to offer a lower increase. As soon as the new strike was announced, the canton government ruled to make it illegal. The workers continue to struggle for better pay.

In May, healthcare workers in Canton 10 held a similar strike. The strike was led by three unions representing doctors, nurses and help staff (e.g., hospital cleaners). On 26 September, unions signed a collective agreement despite the help staff’s union’s claims that they weren’t invited to negotiations and that the signed agreement wasn’t beneficial to them. A day later, however, they decided to strike on their own.

Education workers

High school teachers in western Herzegovina held a one hour warning strike continuing their two year long struggle for a collective agreement. On 21 September, 430 kindergarten workers started a strike in Banja Luka, the capital of Republika Srpska (“Serb Republic” within Bosnia and Herzegovina) for a 50 KM ($24.94) pay increase after wages having remained stagnant for 17 years.

Miners

Miners are historically and currently one of the most militant sectors in Bosnia and Herzegovina. After mass protests in late 2021 and in May of this year, miners working in 7 mines owned by state electricity company Elekroprivreda BiH held a warning strike because the company had paid all its workers except the miners a one-time 750 KM ($374) payment. On the next day the company announced that the miners would be getting the payment too.

Miners employed by the private mining company ArcelorMittal in Prijedor also held a warning strike after their coworkers in Zenica were promised an 1100 KM ($549) one-time payment after Zenica’s city government allowed a tax-free payment to workers. Strikes are set to continue in all other mines owned by ArcelorMittal’s until all workers get the payment.

Elections

All of these strikes are happening in the backdrop of a general election which is, once again, considered the “most important in the history of the country”. After three and a half years of bloody imperialist war in the 1990s, to quell nationalist tensions, the Dayton Accords set up one of the most complicated political systems in the world. The country was divided into two entities, Republika Srpska and Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with 3 constituent peoples – Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. The state has three presidents, each entity has two assemblies and the Federation also has 10 cantons which have some degree of self-goverment. On Sunday 2 October citizens voted on all of these.

The elections come after years of tensions between Bosniak and Croat parties. To give a better picture, only Croats can run for seats reserved for Croat representatives, but voters of every nationality can vote on them. This enables voters of one nationality to elect representatives of other nationalities. For example, Komšić, the current Croat member of the presidency got most of his votes in areas where Croats are a minority. This led to massive backlash from Croat parties led by the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ) and Dragan Čović, the Bosnia Croat president of HDZ, and then a campaign calling for national unity, drawing on fears that Bosniaks will turn Croats into a minority nation and that Croats will lose their constitutional rights. It is true that Croat numbers are shrinking, but this is primarily due to Croat bourgeois, anti-worker economic policies that force thousands of workers to migrate westward into Europe. Negotiations between the sides mediated by the Office of High Representative, a controversial body elected by the UN Security Council that is supposed to safeguard the implementation of the Dayton Accords, have continuously failed.

The Serbian side is dominated by the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, or SNSD, and is led by Milorad Dodik. Even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Dodik and his fellow other heads of government of Srpska were under Western sanctions for their support and constant threats of to secede Srpska from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since the invasion, Dodik has become known as Putin’s number one man in the Balkans, which lead to EUFOR increasing the number of soldiers stationed in the country.

The situation faced by the proletariat today, not only in Bosnia and Herzegovina but in all countries, is one of constant crisis, threats of military intervention and constant divisions. What then is the path the workers must take to escape this vicious cycle of crises? The answer lies neither in nationalist politics, nor in the liberal utopianism promoted by the so-called “civil” parties. The working class can only save itself by struggling for itself, within its class organs, and learning through this struggle to overcome all divisions – national, religious and sectoral.