{"id":69657,"date":"2022-01-19T13:00:36","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T12:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kosovotwopointzero.com\/?p=69657"},"modified":"2022-01-19T14:40:32","modified_gmt":"2022-01-19T13:40:32","slug":"landscapes-of-industrial-ruin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.kosovotwopointzero.com\/en\/landscapes-of-industrial-ruin\/","title":{"rendered":"Landscapes of industrial ruin"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Former factory workers reflect on the failed promises of privatization.\n<\/h4>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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From the late \u201960s to the early \u201980s, facto<\/span>ries rose across Kosovo\u2019s cities and towns. T<\/span>hese factories, monoliths of industrial might, employed tens of thousands of people and exported their goods throughout Yugoslavia, Europe an<\/span>d beyond and conveyed promises <\/span>of modern progress in what was then the poorest region of Yugoslavia. They were economic pillars in their communities, and by developing Kosovo’s industrial capacity, helped nourish in the collective imagination of many Kosovar Albanians the dream of an independent republic.<\/span><\/p>

For the men who labored in Kosovo\u2019s heavy industry \u2014 and it was largely men \u2014 the factories were a source of pride and dignified work.<\/span><\/p>

Today few of these factories remain. Many have been abandoned, emptied, gutted, transformed into landscapes of industrial ruin, or in some cases, into supermarkets, warehouses or other uses. Though a decade of Belgrade’s oppressive and deindustrializing policy in Kosovo that culminated with the \u201998-\u201999 war caused significant damage, many managed to make it through that period. What the factories couldn\u2019t survive was the post-war privatization.<\/span><\/p>

When privatization began in Kosovo in 2002, it was <\/span>presented<\/span><\/a> as an unavoidable necessity in the international state building process. International actors, primarily the U.N. Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and the World Bank, promoted privatization as the key that would unlock economic growth and entry into the pantheon of Western free market liberal democracies.<\/span><\/p>

Since then, it is estimated that <\/span>over 75,000 people<\/span><\/a> lost their jobs as a direct result of privatization. C<\/span>ritics have<\/span> long argued that citizens were excluded from the process and that there was never any substantive discussion about alternative strategies to privatization that may have offered a chance to revive the industrial economy. Moreover, the process has been clouded in allegations of corruption; and many of Kosovo’s 600 or so <\/span>socially-owned enterprises<\/span><\/a> were sold to a small group of business people at artificially deflated prices.<\/span><\/p>

Among the most affected from privatization have been former factory workers who found themselves struggling to find their way in the new postsocialist economy. The <\/span>nostalgia<\/span><\/a> many of these workers feel for the era of socialist industrial labor may come across as a tale of a romanticized and mythic lost past, but the sense of security, purpose and agency they felt working for socially-owned enterprises with robust social welfare provisions was far from a myth. This nostalgia is perhaps heightened by the mass unemployment and social dispossession that has followed.<\/span><\/p>

Kosovo\u2019s current government has announced they aim to break with the two-decade long legacy of privatization by establishing a sovereign fund to manage state assets<\/span>. In this moment of political shift<\/span>, some of Kosovo’s former industrial laborers reflect on what was lost to the era of privatization.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

It was a good life for the time<\/b><\/p>

When Ruhan Kadriu decide<\/span>d to put himself forward for a new job a<\/span>fter he had spent nearly 16 years as a finance officer at the “Fabrika e Armaturave t\u00eb Nd\u00ebrtimtaris\u00eb – FAN” (“C<\/span>onstruction Rebar Factory”) <\/span>in his hometown Podujeva, deep down he <\/span>ho<\/span>ped he wouldn\u2019t get hired.<\/span><\/p>

Located around 200 meters from his house, the factory h<\/span>ad been his second home sin<\/span>ce 1985, when he began working there <\/span>as an intern t<\/span>wo <\/span>years after the factory opened. As one of its long-serving workers, Kadriu was fortun<\/span>ate enough to live what would later be remembered as the factory\u2019s golden era. Those were the days in the mid to late \u201980s when t<\/span>rucks from all over Yugoslavia would line up in front of the factory\u2019s gates to receiv<\/span>e their loads of rebar <\/span>and welded steel m<\/span>esh panels.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The factory was a bran<\/span>ch of <\/span>Zenica\u2019s metallurgical combine<\/span><\/a>, one of the largest in Bosnia and Herzegov<\/span>ina. The Podujeva branch’s 50,000 tons of refined steel products were shipped across Yugoslavia and exported to Greece and Italy.<\/span><\/p>

Kadriu was often tasked with financial duties that required him to travel all over Yugoslavia to meet with the factory\u2019s business partners. \u201cI was almost always on the road,\u201d he recalled.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Ruhan Kadriu: \"There\u2019s no one on this earth who can convince me that privatization brought any good to this country.\"\n


\n\"Workers who had been there for 20 years bought into the illusion that privatization would make the factory blossom.\"\n<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Employing more than 350 workers, the factory played a central role in Podujeva\u2019s economy. \u201cThe whole t<\/span>own rejoiced each time the factory workers got their m<\/span>onthly pay,\u201d <\/span>Kadriu told me. <\/span>In addition to a good salary, the factory provided other benefits characteristic of the socialist Yugo<\/span>slav sys<\/span>tem: health insurance and free vacations. Each summer, the workers went to Neum, a coastal town in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the Z<\/span>enica combine ha<\/span>d a hotel. Three of the rooms were reserved for workers from the Podujeva factory. \u201cWe would take turns so all of us could use the rooms,” Kadriu said. “It was a good life for that time.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

In 2001, when Kadriu applied for the new job, the re<\/span>bar factory was no longer the stately “metallurgical giant” it once used to be for Podujeva. A<\/span> decade of political turmoil, culminating in the 1999 war in Kosovo, ha<\/span>d tarnished its shine.<\/span><\/p>

Nevertheless, the situation was not completely desperate. Two<\/span> years after the war, some kind of normalcy had settled in and workers began to return to the factory, production started up again and there was even enoug<\/span>h revenue to afford paying decent wages<\/span>. \u201cAt some point after the war, I had a salary of 800 Deutsche Marks,\u201d Kadriu said.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Kadriu was among the first workers to enter the factory in June 1999 just a couple of days after NATO troops arrived in Podujeva.\n<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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So on a day out with friends in Prishtina, when Kadriu saw the job vacancy announcement, he hadn’t been considering changing the course of his career. It was a finance officer position at the Department of Social Welfare, in what were then the provisional institutions established by <\/span>UNMIK. \u201cI <\/span>applied mainly out of curiosity,\u201d Kadriu said. \u201cBut I wasn\u2019t thinking of leaving the factory at the time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

Back in June 1999, K<\/span>adriu was among the first workers to enter the factory just a couple of d<\/span>ays after the early morning when NAT<\/span>O troops arrived in Poduj<\/span>eva, bringing glad tidings of liberation. Inside the factory, he and some of his colleagues found a<\/span> significant amount of raw material that allowed them to commence produ<\/span>ction. \u201cThe factory was lightly damaged during the war and we gathered day after day to clean it,\u201d Kadriu remembered. \u201cSoon we managed to revive the factory and that kept us going.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

However, it would not take long for the initial enthusiasm to<\/span> wane. <\/span>According to Kadriu, day-to-day disagree<\/span>ments between the workers and the managerial staff st<\/span>arted occurring. H<\/span>e claims that qualified workers began to leave, and the least experienced took over. Soon, talk of privatization was in the air. Whether cynically planned or not, Kadriu thinks that the sh<\/span>op floor rancor and discontent helped depreciate the value of the factory. This made privatization seem acceptable, even desirable. \u201cWorkers who had been there for 20 years bought into the illusion that privatization would make the factory blossom,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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