Making and Breaking the Yugoslav Working Class: The Story of Two Self-Managed Factories(Work and Labor – Transdisciplinary Studies for the 21st Century - CEU Press)

Workers' self-management was one of the unique features of communist Yugoslavia. Goran Musić has investigated the changing ways in which blue-collar workers perceived the recurring crises of the regime. Two self-managed metal enterprises, one in Serbia another in Slovenia, provide the frame of the analysis in the time span between 1945 and 1989. These two factories became famous for strikes in 1988 that evoked echoes in popular discourses in former Yugoslavia. Drawing on interviews, factory publications and other media, local archives, and secondary literature, Musić analyzes the two cases, going beyond the clichés of political manipulation from the top and workers' intrinsic attraction to nationalism. The author explains how, in the later phase of communist Yugoslavia, growing social inequalities among the workers and undemocratic practices inside the self-managed enterprises facilitated the spread of a nationalist and pro-market ideology on the shop floors. Yet rather than being a mass taken advantage of by populist leaders, the working class Musić presents is one with agency and voice, a force that played an important role in shaping the fate of the country. The book thus seeks to open a debate on the social processes leading up to the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

Table of Contents:
Figures and Tables Abbreviations Acknowledgments Introduction Unfulfilled Expectations Mighty Elites and Subservient Workers (Re)Discovering Labor Approaching Class and Nation in a Yugoslav Factory Sources and Chapter Overview Chapter 1. Two Roads to Self-managing Socialism Two Blue-Collar Communities Differing Origins “Factories to the Workers” Market Socialism Losing Factory Unity Chapter 2. Factory Structures and Everyday Life under Associated Labor Reviving Revolution through Normative Acts The More Things Change Claiming Tito The Factory as a Collective Chapter 3. Shades of Blue-collar Workers Proletariat in the Making Who Creates Value? Skill, Gender, and Place of Origin Veterans and the Youth Appendix 1 Chapter 4. The Dragging Crisis, 1979–1986 The Sudden Breakdown The Party at an Impasse TAM’s Pushback of Associated Labor IMR Tries to Catch Up Chapter 5. Breaking the Pact: Workers, Liberals, and Nationalists against the Status Quo Cutting out the Middlemen The Stolen Golden Apples The Diligent Ones Appendix 2 Chapter 6. Mobilizations at the Bottom—Realignments at the Top, 1986–1988 Reaching Beyond the Factory Gates A “Firm Hand” Inside Serbia Bypassing the Working Class in Slovenia Beggar Thy Neighbor Chapter 7. Workers in the Streets Two Outlets in Rakovica Deus Ex Machina Maribor’s Blue-Collar Wrath Post Festum Conclusion The Unsettled Working Class Liberal and Collectivist Self-Management In Search of Allies and Enemies Unanticipated Changes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Goran Music is a research fellow at the Research Platform for the Study of Transformations and Eastern Europe, University of Vienna.

Review :
"As Musić describes, workers act through the shifting alliances between factory management, the party apex, and their own occupational communities—which are themselves segmented according to age, skill, gender, and origin. The result is a dense and lucid analysis that pays equal attention to the institutional changes, class relations, and the shifting common sense that framed Yugoslavia’s labor politics from 1945 until 1990. Musić’s book is one of the most important recent contributions to the study of the political and moral economy of socialist Yugoslavia. It will shape discussions on class agency, hegemonic liberalism, and distributional conflicts in Southeastern Europe and beyond for years to come." https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/soeu-2021-0084/html "Brilliantly pedagogical in explaining self-management as theory and as practice, even to the freshest of beginners in economic history and theory, this book is an important puzzle piece for furthering our understanding of the dissolution of Socialist Yugoslavia, Musić’s work brings an innovative outlook from the very factory shopfloors, bringing the subjectivity back to the working classes and taking up the factory as level of analysis." "Das vorliegende Buch ist nicht nur höchst interessant und informativ, sondern auch konzeptionell überzeugend. Musić hat ein in vielerlei Hinsicht wegweisendes Buch vorgelegt, das ein kräftiges Plädoyer für die Integration der 'Arbeiterklasse' in die Geschichte Jugoslawiens – und gerade auch seines Zerfalls – ist, und zwar nicht nur als Opfer, sondern auch Akteur dieser Geschichte." "The book has a balanced understanding of change as an interaction between structure and agency, where neither has a negligible role. The author shows how the effective abandonment of the Yugoslav working class by the socialist regime’s policies foreshadowed the social inequalities in the successor postsocialist states." https://www.tandfonline.com/share/CTHFEAVHVIEGXQDABMV4?target=10.1080/09668136.2023.2266290 "L’ouvrage de Goran Musić constitue donc une contribution importante à la compréhension de l’autogestion yougoslave dans l’entreprise, de son fonctionnement et de ses dysfonctionnements. L’ouvrage de Goran Musić montre la persistance du pouvoir des directeurs d’entreprise et des cols blancs, ou l’éloignement des conseillers élus de leur base ouvrière. Mais il insiste aussi sur la manière dont l’autogestion dissout l’unité de la classe ouvrière et favorise les corporatismes d’entreprise, qui peuvent alimenter à leur tour des récriminations de type nationaliste." https://journals.openedition.org/balkanologie/4694 "Goran Musić hat ein umfangreiches und beeindruckendes Werk vorgelegt, dass mit scharfen Analysen unter anderem die Konkurrenz zwischen Unternehmen sowie die daraus mangelnde Solidarität unter Arbeiter:innen unterschiedlicher Betriebe herausarbeitet. Er zeigt auch, dass die Strukturen der Selbstverwaltung keine Organisationsformen für den Ausdruck ihrer Unzufriedenheit boten; der Streik wurde jenseits dieser Gremien organisiert. Dabei beweist er auch immer Talent für spannende Erzählungen und die Auswahl anschaulicher Interviewzitate." Mirjam Baumert https://kritisch-lesen.de/rezension/unruhe-in-der-selbstverwaltung