Serb cuts off finger to protest overdue
wages
BELGRADE (Reuters) - A Serbian union official who chopped off
his finger and ate it in a protest over wages that in some cases
have not been paid in years, said Monday he did it to show how
desperate he and other workers were.
"We, the workers have nothing to eat, we had to seek some sort
of alternative food and I gave them an example," Zoran Bulatovic
told Reuters. "It hurt like hell."
Bulatovic, a union leader at the Raska Holding textile factory
in Novi Pazar in southwest Serbia, used a hacksaw to cut off most
of his left-hand little finger Friday.
Bulatovic said he decided to act after his deputy, "a single
mother of three, was the first to say she would cut off her finger.
I could not allow her to do that," he said.
State-owned Raska Holding was a major textile producer in the
late 1980s with a workforce of 4,000. It suffered during the
collapse of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and a loss of
markets and mismanagement during a decade of wars and sanctions led
to massive job cuts, leaving the company with just 100 workers.
Some employees have not been paid for years, only collecting
social benefits, like free medical care.
About two dozen workers went on a 19-day hunger strike last
year. They want the company's debt to be swapped for state-held
equity and a welfare program for those nearing retirement.
Bulatovic said his comrades will not back down from their
demands, but they will postpone planned self-mutilations at least
until talks with government officials in Belgrade expected
Tuesday.
(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Gordana Filipovic
and Matthew Jones)
