Workers Joke, but Yugoslavian Economy Isn’t Funny

ZAGREB, Yugoslavia —  The latest trend in Yugoslav political jokes features visitors to and from Japan, where the fabled work habits of the island nation are seen as putting Yugoslavia to shame.

In one anecdote, a Japanese colleague comes to study Yugoslav methods by working in a factory. He arrives at 5:45 every morning, immediately starts working and keeps at it all day. Locals come in at 6 or 6:30, chat for a while, take a long coffee break, work from 8 to 9 a.m., take an early lunch break, work a little more, slip around the corner for a beer and go home early.

This goes on for several days. Finally, one of the Yugoslavs invites the Japanese to join the crowd for coffee. “Fine,” the visitor replies. “But only for five minutes, and I want it understood that I’m not taking any part in your strike action.”

20,000 Protest Pay Cuts

At many factories across Yugoslavia in the last few weeks, truth caught up with humor as more than 20,000 workers put down their tools for anywhere from a few hours to an entire day to protest temporary pay cuts that went as high as 50%. The reductions were imposed by the federal government in an effort to fight the country’s inflation rates of nearly 100%.

But the job actions--known officially as work stoppages because the word strike is reserved for contests between workers and bosses in the capitalist world--have a uniquely Yugoslav flavor.

Instead of pounding the pavement for weeks with picket signs demanding a better deal, workers are more likely to simply go back to work after thrashing things out with management in meetings that last for hours in smoke-filled rooms. Despite the country’s unusual system of worker self-management, which declares that employees themselves are the owners of their work places, strikes have become increasingly common in recent years.

Over 900 Strikes in 1986

More than 900 were recorded in 1986, but the first two weeks of this month saw more than 70 job actions, officials said. Almost half took place in the heavily industrialized northern republic of Croatia, of which Zagreb is the capital.

In some plants, workers at one end of a building stayed at their jobs while those at the other end laid down their tools.

More strikes are expected in coming weeks as workers in other areas also find their pay reduced as part of the government’s decision to link salaries to productivity of individual enterprises or to individual shops in big factories.

This month’s strikes began independently and spread across much of the country despite a virtual news blackout. They were not preceded by long planning: Many workers learned of the salary cutbacks only when they picked up a slimmer pay envelope.

Regime Refuses to Back Down

As word of the cutbacks spread, leaders of the official labor unions and the League of Communists of Croatia expressed concern about the severity of the measures, but the federal government headed by Premier Branko Mikulic declared that it would not back down.

Mikulic himself has not commented on the strikes, but a statement released in his name Friday indicated that the government position might be softening. According to the statement, there will be a 20% rollback of prices for a variety of goods, including furniture, cosmetics, textiles, some food products and agricultural machinery. This gesture reflects the severity of the inflationary climate, since a 20% reduction in the prices for these goods actually turns back the clock no further than last December.

Yearly inflation was estimated at about 100% in 1986, and prices are still rising. The price of bread went up 25% this week, to about $1 a kilogram.

The increases prompted the leadership of the Croatian Communist organizations to release an unusual statement saying that while the government’s policy has “economic meaning and logic,” it comes at a time when “the prices of some essential articles which considerably influence the population’s standard of living have been raised.”

Re-Examination Urged

Pointing to the “inadequacy of freezing personal incomes while at the same time raising prices,” the leadership asked that the emergency wage cuts be reexamined.

For his part, Ivo Bilandzija, head of the Croatian trade unions, said, “What the Federal Executive Council (the Yugoslav government) is trying to impose as economic policy was so rushed that the consequences were unavoidable and the results were unfortunate.

“It seems as though some decisions were made by a narrow circle of politicians and did not take the human factor enough into consideration,” he said. “We have to cut all that is unprofitable, but we can’t leave the workers out on the streets.”

The reality of government economics was brought home to Premier Mikulic himself last weekend when striking waiters at a ski resort refused to serve him. According to local reports, waiters were brought in from a nearby city to serve the premier and several of his top aides, who were in the northern town of Kranjske Gori during a ski jump competition.

Vicious Cycle

According to a government spokesman, the wage cuts were intended to shock the economy out of a vicious cycle in which many of the worker-governed enterprises that dominate the Yugoslav economy have granted themselves ever higher wage increases in an effort to keep ahead of inflation.

This was part of a larger syndrome that saw the country struggling to keep up with payments on foreign debts of nearly $20 billion.

Belt-tightening measures caused a 40% drop in real income between 1981 and 1984, but the standard of living dropped so low that public opinion forced an increase of 10% in personal income last year, while government figures showed that the productivity of the economy stayed about the same.

“Our policy to get out of the crisis now is to adjust the entire consumption to fit our real possibilities, which means that we cannot spend more than we actually earn,” said Mirko Malinovich, assistant federal secretary for information.

‘We Must Spend Less’

“On the contrary,” he said, “we must spend less than earnings, because we must service the debts.”

In many cases, Malinovich said, revenue-hungry local and regional governments have contributed to the problem by encouraging enterprises to pay out more in salaries, which are taxable, instead of keeping profits within companies for investment purposes.

“This puts greater pressure on the market, because the higher salaries make for a greater demand than the supply can satisfy, which imposes a greater demand on production, and inflation rises,” the official said. “It’s a vicious cycle.”

Another side effect is that with more money in circulation, producers find it easier to sell their products at home than to export them. This hurts the country’s efforts to solve its foreign debt problems by selling abroad.

Premier Faces Challenges

Although Mikulic has been in office for more than a year, the challenges of finding an economic policy that would satisfy the six republics and two autonomous regions that make up Yugoslavia delayed the implementation of his policies, officials said.

Split by religious differences and often bloody ethnic rivalries that go back for centuries, Yugoslavia also faces a striking gap in development between the gleaming modernity of its northern republics and the muddy backwardness of much of the rural south.

Economic differences exist within individual republics and provinces as well, a situation that often leads to stalemate as representatives of different interests fail to reach agreements in the absence of a strong central government.

No strong leader has yet emerged since the death six years ago of Marshal Josip Broz Tito, who founded modern Yugoslavia after World War II.

Instead, representatives of the republics and provinces take turns heading the group presidency of the country, while the four-year term of the premier adds some stability to the system.

Threatened to Resign

Relying on the fear of disruptions that would result from his departure, Mikulic threatened in recent months to resign if his economic proposals were not adopted, government officials said.

“The future of the government actually hinged on the adoption of this present legislation,” Malinovic said. “The laws were adopted, but if they hadn’t been . . . , resignation was not out of the question.”

Even if inflation is quashed, Yugoslavia’s leaders are faced with the problem of how to motivate their workers to overcome the apathy about working for the public sector that gives rise to jokes about visitors to and from Japan.

With an average salary of about $2,200 a year, many workers find it necessary to take on so-called fus, or moonlighting, jobs to make ends meet. According to another anecdote, which casts light on the problem, a delegation returns from a study trip to Japan and tells an assembly of factory workers about a Japanese laborer who was asked why he worked so diligently.

“I work two hours for me, two hours for my family and four hours for the progress of Japan,” the Japanese worker replied.

At which a Yugoslav worker raised his hand and said: “I also follow the same formula. I work two hours for myself, two hours for my family and four hours I don’t work at all.”

And why not? “Who cares about the progress of Japan anyhow?” the Yugoslav worker replied.