Fortune worker Zula Mekić: First they destroyed the factory, now they want to get rid of us too

About a hundred workers from struggling public companies in Tuzla are protesting in Sarajevo against the government's new draft Law on Bankruptcy. If the government's law is adopted, workers claim they will lose all hope that the state will ever settle its debts for pension and health insurance, which it has owed them for several years.

A working group composed of representatives from the World Bank and ministries from the FBiH government believes that certain areas in the current Bankruptcy Law are not well regulated, which is why the government has proposed the adoption of a new law.

Opposition members criticize that the government's proposal for the new bankruptcy law marginalizes workers. They claim it stipulates that after bankruptcy, i.e., the sale of any public company, the proceeds first go to banks and the bankruptcy trustee, and only then are obligations to workers settled.

Such a thing, they add from the opposition, would not be fair to workers, because „they are not to blame for the failure of the company they worked for.“

A session of the FBiH Parliament is underway, and one of the items on the agenda is the draft Law on Bankruptcy. In front of the FBiH Parliament building, workers from state-owned companies Fortuna, TTU, Aida, Guming, TDI Tuzla, Dita, Livnica, Polihem are protesting at the same time...

Zula Mekić (51) tells Patria that she worked for 22 years in the successful company Fortuna, which produced footwear. The management did not register her pension contributions for the last eight years. Because of this, she cannot retire.

- Both my husband and I are at the employment office. I cannot retire until the company registers my years of service. I don't know when that will happen. We survive because he sometimes sells some wood or works in construction, but we don't know how long he can keep it up – says Zula Mekić.

- While Fortuna was operating, we lived decently. Then the company failed. The workers are not to blame for that. Nobody asked us anything. They just sent us home. The prosecutor's office should investigate who destroyed the company and punish them, not the workers – says Mekić.