Serbian workers ‘go East’ in search of jobs and a future
KRAGUJEVAC, Serbia – When Ljubisav Grbovic was named the best metal worker of prosperous, socialist Yugoslavia almost 30 years ago, he never thought that one day he’d be traveling «to the East» for work. «At the time, I would never have considered going to Czechoslovakia to work,» said Grbovic, now 54. «It was a communist country then, it didn’t offer any opportunities.» Czechoslovakia no longer exists and neither does Yugoslavia. Divorced since 1993, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are now European Union members with fast-expanding economies. But Serbia, the biggest ex-Yugoslav state, lags well behind, still paying for its role in the wars that tore apart the socialist federation in the 1990s. Forty years ago, Germany, France and Austria were promised lands for a generation of Yugoslav «gastarbeiter.» Today the spreading affluence of EU membership has pushed the boundary eastward, into what was once Iron Curtain territory. Model worker Grbovic is one of 19 Serbs who got on a bus yesterday to go to work in a factory in the Czech Republic, the first wave of workers to go abroad as part of a Serbian state initiative to combat a 30 percent unemployment rate. They come from Kragujevac, a rusting industrial hub known as the Detroit of Yugoslavia in the heyday of carmaker Zastava, producer of the iconic Yugo. Their new employer is CKD, which builds railway cars in Kutna Hora, 970 kilometers away. Momcilo Milenkovic, 51, worked for Zastava for 22 years. He said it would be hard to leave his family, but he looked forward to the salary of some 600 euros, double Serbia’s average. «When I went to school, we were taught that we were much better off than the Czechs, who lived in a communist country,» Milenkovic said. «I feel sorry now when I see us so far behind.» If things in Kutna Hora are as promised, he may stay on. But if not, he will return to Serbia. Jobs for the over-50s The deal with CKD was brokered by the Serbian unemployment bureau in Kragujevac, which is struggling to place over 7,000 workers who lost their jobs when Zastava was restructured in 2001, shortly after the fall of autocrat Slobodan Milosevic. The Serb workers, all over 50 years old, will be paid between 2.50 and 4 euros an hour, depending on their skills. At first they will live together in company accommodation. But many plan to learn Czech and perhaps bring their families. Dragoljub Randjic, 50, a former Zastava welder, sees the trip as a new start. In the 1990s, when Serbia was under UN sanctions, he made his living smuggling textiles and trinkets from Bulgaria and Turkey and selling them on the street. «This country is not moving ahead,» he said. «We are grateful that the Czech Republic agreed to accept us.» Once settled in Kutna Hora, he hopes to find a job for his 27-year old son, who makes just 150 euros a month. «I would like my son to marry a Czech woman and stay there. There is no future for him in Serbia,» Randjic said. «With his salary now, he can’t even take a woman out to dinner.»
