23 February, 2010GIKIL pays back wages to Bosnian workers and monitoring begins after workers take strike action and receive international solidarity support.
BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA: The renegade Indian steel company run by Pramod Mittal was made to pay back wages to 1,250 members of the Independent Trade Union of Chemistry and Non-Metals of Bosnia-Herzegovina (SSHN-FBIH) this month.
A deadline of February 15 was met by Mittal's company, Global Ispat Koksana Industtrija Lukavac (GIKIL), which manages and half-owns the sodium carbonate plant, and wages were paid through December 2009.
Workers at GIKIL, also half-owned by the Canton of Tuzla, and SSHN-FBIH's President Kata Ivelijc assured that back wages were paid by the delinquent Mittal through their vigilant strikes and determination. They received assistance outside of Bosnia-Herzegovina from the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine, and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), the International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF), and the European Metalworkers' Federation (EMF).
After receiving no pay for work performed over the final quarter of 2009, SSHN-FBIH began a week-long strike action on January 6. That strike gained them back-pay for October and November, and then the outside intervention and workers' actions at the plant and inside Tuzla got them December's pay by the deadline, February 15, a date on which workers were braced to take another strike action.
The empowered action of workers in highly industrialized northern Bosnia was widely noted across Europe. Both the ICEM and SSHN-FBIH pledge unified vigilance on future salaries to be paid on time, justified increases to those salaries, and improved health and safety conditions at GIKIL.
Kata Ivelijc thanked the ICEM, IMF, and EMF for "the cooperation and support" and said the intervention "left a strong impression on the institutions and media" in the region. For more information see the ICEM website.