At yesterday’s press conference representatives of education trade unions (the SPRS Union, the GSPRS Nezavisnost, SRPS, SOS) announced a protest motivated by the introduction of a new salary structure in the public sector. The protest named “Justice before money” will be held on the August 31, at noon, in front of the Serbian Ministry of education.
Private-public partnerships in public services sector represent just another instrument for private businesses to get their hands on public funds. BusPlus is a typical example of such business model in Serbia whose downsides have been obvious for years now.
The Serbian state undertook action to evict refugees from their homes in Ustanička street and the Bristol hotel in Belgrade. In the first case the results of an open call for residency in the apartments used by the Commissariat for Refugees are used as justification for the evictions. In the second it is the whim of private investors.
Erdoğan and AKP have won another election in Turkey. The electoral process and the rhetoric of the ruling party, as well as the notable economic crisis, show that the Turkish state will tighten its repressive nationalist policies.
Higher Court in Belgrade rejected an application to rehabilitate quisling Prime Minister of occupied Serbia during World War II, Milan Nedić.
The famous “historical NO” stems from a history of relations between FPR Yugoslavia and the USSR significantly more complex than the story of Tito’s shift towards the West.
Geox owner Mario Moretti Polegato and the mayor of the city of Vranje in Serbia Slobodan Milenković discussed the possible implementation of a dual education based practice in the Geox factory in Vranje.
In the Slovenian early parliamentary elections Levica (The Left) – aparty that stands for democratic eco-socialism – won almost double-digit shareof votes.
The workers from Turkish factory Kaizen who were dismissed last Saturday had signed mutual termination agreements under management’s pressure and threats of legal prosecution.
Around three hundred workers employed in Turkish factory Kaizen in Smederevo started a strike yesterday demanding to receive promised reimbursments for overtime labour.
‘Political horror film’ named The other side of everything has gained significant international attention, won certain awards and filled the cinema seats. Mašina uncovers all that has been unsaid in the film and unveils the lurking class antagonisms beneath what it claims to present.
Rory Archer is a historian who researches social history of the Balkans in the 20th century and currently works at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at the University College London. Archer explores the ways in which “ordinary” Yugoslavs interpreted economic, political and cultural tensions in late socialism and reacted to them. Since 2014 he has worked with Goran Musić on a research project titled Between Class and Nation: Working class communities in the eighties in Serbia and Montenegro. In 2015 he completed his PhD in Graz with a dissertation on the (in)affordability of housing among the working class in Belgrade, and in 2016 co-authored the book Social Inequalities and Disaffection in Yugoslavian Socialism.
Several dozen of men and women participated today in Belgrade protest which was organized as a part of the global day of action and international solidarity with Afrin.
A protest march marking International Women’s Day took place in Belgrade.
Mašina is covering the on-going Belgrade City Assembly elections. Comments written by our editorial board, reports from the election headquarters, commissions and organisations overseeing the elections coming soon! We’re on it!
One of the most vocal promotors of leaving the Eurozone was Costas Lapavitsas, professor of Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Mr. Lapavitsas is a prominent critic of the European financial system, and has been working on issues related to the theory of money over many years.
In the past couple of decades, Goli Otok has been frequented by anti-communists and revisionists. History of this island unquestionably represents one of the most prominent blots in Yugoslav socialism, but sensationalism and falsified data do not help in better understanding the matter.
Pauperised Serbia pays exuberant amounts for educating doctors who end up a number in the Bureau of Labour registers or find employment in the West; affluent Germany systematically educates fewer doctors than it needs because it will always be able to recruit them from countries that “have not made it” in their transition to capitalism.
The social need for renewable energy has become a true frenzy for profit-making among the private investors. Building a mini hydroelectric power plant in a nature reserve can have devastating effects on the ecosystem. We visited Stara Planina, an area where rivers could soon start flowing through the pipes.
Marc Ribot’s excellence as a versatile guitarist, an improviser and a composer is well known among fans and music lovers. What has received less attention is his activism for labor rights of musicians, his view on and experience with labor organizing. After his exciting concert with The Young Philadelphians at the 33rd Belgrade Jazz Festival, Mašina had the opportunity to discuss with him a subject – he says – he gladly talks about: politics.
The changes that the Facebook company introduced to the social network it controls might have political consequences.
