Lucani, Dec. 04, 2002 - Trade union leaders from six factories in Serbia's special industry held a meeting in the Milan Blagojevic Namenska factory in Lucani today, from which they sent an appeal to the Yugoslav government for an urgent resolution of the difficult position facing the workers in these enterprises.
The meeting was attended by union leaders from the following factories: Prvi Partizan from Uzice, Krusik from Valjevo, Sloboda from Cacak, Zastava from Kragujevac, Prva Iskra from Baric, and Milan Blagojevic from Lucani, which employ a total of 20,000 workers.
In a statement to the media after the meeting, they said that the unions of the enterprises in the special industry requested that the state should immediately enable them to export their products to countries that are not subject to the sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council. The affair over military cooperation with Iraq, which is subject to UN sanctions, has resulted in heavy losses for the special industry in Serbia.
"For two months now contract work in the enterprises of the special industry is at a standstill, products made under contract are sitting in warehouses, payment for goods already delivered has been stopped. The recent affair over the alleged sale and arms and munitions to countries subject to sanctions has done incalculable damage to these collectives," the statement says.
The trade unionists believe that a one-off payment by the Federal Government of 700 million dinars in the form of an advance for production to meet the needs of the Yugoslav Army would be enough to overcome the present difficulties, as well as to conclude deals for future work with countries that are not subject to UN sanctions.
They have asked Federal Prime Minister Dragisa Pesic to receive them and give them guarantees that the problems of the special industry will start to be resolved. Otherwise, the statement says, the workers will "very quickly take to the streets to have their demands met".
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