A central event marking the Labour Day in Bosnia and Herzegovina under auspices of the country's independent trade unions' alliance took place in the central town of Zenica, in front of facilities of a local ironworks company whose bankruptcy left dozens jobless, without social welfare or health care.

“I want those who are responsible for situation that workers in the Federation (one of two Bosnia's semi-autonomous regions) are in to read these messages and I would like to express support to the workers of ‘Zenica Ironworks’,” said Selvedin Satorovic, the leader of Bosnia's Alliance of Independent Trade Unions, addressing the crowd.

“It's not their fault that their years in service i.e. their contributions were never paid. It is the state to blame for failing to make a control and we invite them to do that as soon as possible because people earned their pensions hard”, he added.

He dismissed the statements labelling Bosnian workers as lazy.

“If we check only 200 or 300 kilometres to the north, in the first European Union country, the most wanted workforce in Germany, Austria, Switzerland…are workers from Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said Satorovic.

According to him, the reason why the workers are leaving the country is the lack of proper protection at work, which is regulated with a law dating back to 1990.

If authorities wanted, Satorovic said, they could send to procedure a new law that the unions and employers agreed on and provide the workers with conditions similar to those that workers in the EU have.

“We must be with those who are having problems today because tomorrow, when we encounter problems, nobody will be standing next to us. That's what authorities want. It is their wish to tear the trade unions apart, to make us accuse each other and that nobody addresses these problems,” he told the workers who gathered in Zenica.

Trade unions, Satorovic added, will not give up on their demand for increasing daily allowance from 2.31 Bosnian marks to 3.59 (approx. 0.51 to 1.83 Euro).