Making and Breaking the Yugoslav Working Class : : The Story of Two Self-Managed Factories / / Goran Musić.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Central European University Press eBook-Package 2021
• VerfasserIn: Musić, Goran,
• Place / Publishing House: Budapest ;, New York : : Central European University Press, , [2021]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Series: Work and Labor – Transdisciplinary Studies for the 21st Century
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (288 p.) :; 2 tables, 24 photos

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

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Figures and Tables -- Abbreviations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- CHAPTER ONE Two Roads to Self-Managing Socialism -- CHAPTER TWO Factory Structures and Everyday Life under Associated Labor -- CHAPTER THREE Shades of Blue-Collar Workers -- CHAPTER FOUR The Dragging Crisis, 1979–1986 -- CHAPTER FIVE Breaking the Pact: Workers, Liberals, and Nationalists against the Status Quo -- CHAPTER SIX Mobilizations at the Bottom— Realignments at the Top, 1986–1988 -- CHAPTER SEVEN Workers in the Streets -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index