Tomić and His May Day After 'Someone' Decided He Was a Technological Surplus

(Patria) - If we take March 16 as the start of mass layoffs due to issued orders to close a large number of businesses, we come to the data that during the pandemic period in the Federation of BiH, 24,479 people lost their jobs, and if we add the number of over 2,500 laid-off workers in the RS, the situation is far from festive. 

May Day is difficult and uncertain. We are facing it in an abnormal situation, when we are all worried about our health and jobs. We are concerned about what will happen the day after, when all this is over. 

Slađan Tomić, a fellow journalist, is one of those who was sent to the Employment Bureau. After the initial shock, today, May 1, he speaks to Patria about his feelings and expectations.

„My feelings range from disappointment and betrayal by the newly appointed management, who months earlier were proud of my work, efficiency, expediency, work on all platforms, to a sense of freedom. 

This is the first May Day in the last half a decade that I can celebrate and not have to work. In previous years, I missed those gatherings with friends because there were always older colleagues who deserved to be free on May Day more,“ says Tomić.

However, fortunately for Tomić, he experienced the saying „every cloud has a silver lining“ firsthand.  

„Although I am officially unemployed, there is work. I feel more useful than ever. After someone decided that I was a technological surplus, I received offers for part-time and occasional engagement from eight addresses. 

Some offers are acceptable, some are not, but the important thing is that there are offers – even if they are not equivalent to my previous work engagement. A journalist is a worker, and as they recently said in a TV show, journalists in BiH are nothing more than factory workers because the law does not recognize them,“ adds Tomić.

He also says that workers in BiH, including journalists, have been abandoned by society, excluded from all government negotiations, union-unorganized, and endangered.

„Without too much pathos, it is not that we are in a bad state as much as we are apathetic and tolerant while our rights are being stolen along the way,“ added Tomić.