Public transportation is under attack in Sarajevo. The day before yesterday quite literally. Armen Dulić, a GRAS employee (city public transit company) was murdered on the job. He was riding a bus home when he stood up in defense of his colleague, the one driving the bus. The unnamed assailant exited the bus on the same stop as Dulić and stabbed him in the heart. The bus driver took Dulić to the hospital but he died on the way there, on the GRAS bus, much the way he lived.

In response, all GRAS employees walked off the job that afternoon. Walking around old town I heard the most vicious comments from the locals, how all GRAS employees deserve to die. (?!) I took the first taxi to the GRAS headquarters where the workers gathered for a meeting with the head of the cantonal ministry responsible for funding GRAS, Mr. Jusuf Bubica as well as the Premier Mr. Muhamed Kozadra, Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr. Nermin Pećanac, and Minister of Labor, Social Security, Refugees and Displaced Persons (?!) Mr. Muamer Bandić.

At the gates, I talked to several workers who told me a lot about their struggles to maintain this publicly owned company, in existence in some form since the 1880s. They haven’t been paid the last three months, having just received their February salary. Two strikes ago, they finally got their health care contributions taken care of, but their retiree benefits have not been paid in 7 years. Close to 100 workers cannot retire because of this illegal gap in coverage.

Even a perfunctory search of news coverage of GRAS shows the absurdity of their situation: Minister Bubica allegedly has stocks in the rival private company Centrotrans, not to mention political connections that gave him the position he holds today. In January, when the Sarajevo Cantonal Assembly passed a measure by which GRAS was allowed to mortgage some of its holdings in order to pay up their tax bill, Bubica said: “This is just prolonging the inevitable collapse of GRAS.” As Bubica is responsible for little else, it is truly ridiculous that he is undermining GRAS, his one and only responsibility!

Just a month prior, Bubica decided to assign five GRAS routes to Centrotrans, a private company. Three lines were forcibly stopped in January, but the residents of these communities blocked the other company’s buses in response, demanding that GRAS vehicles return. Bubica had to relent, but promised a “long term solution” that will be “given to both companies.”

Ekran.ba reported in July 2013 that the plan to destroy GRAS dates back to at least 2004 when the most profitable lines began to be awarded to Centrotrans. Ibrahim Jusufranić, a one time GRAS director, left the company and proceeded to take over the majority ownership in Unioninvest and a significant chunk in Centrotrans. A law regarding “coordination” of public transportation in Sarajevo was not implemented at the time, ultimately benefiting Centrotrans, having created an atmosphere of random rather than regulated route assignments. Bubica then signed an order to assign twelve bus routes to Centrotrans, illegally, the routes never having been put up for official tender. (Why any routes that GRAS operates should be transferred to other, private companies, even in legal tender is beyond me) At the time, GRAS was a profitable, fairly stable company that could have matched Centrotrans. That is no longer the case today, as Bubica has worked diligently to destroy GRAS for the last ten years.

Towards the end of last year, the union and the government reached a basic agreement by which the workers gave up 10% of their salary and 2 KM per diem in return for a number of measures, none of which have been implemented to date. The new budget reached earlier this year did not include any of the points agreed upon.

GRAS is not funded from the budget, at least not to the point that they should. The retirees and students get drastically reduced monthly tickets but the workers, rather than the government ends up paying for them. GRAS, in other words, never gets fully reimbursed for those nominal prices (as little as 5 KM per retiree per month). Single ride tickets are pricey, but the losses incurred in monthly tickets are destroying GRAS.

In not so subtle terms, the plan to privatize GRAS was raised at last week’s Forum for Prosperity and Employment. The company was called unsustainable by the very same people who are working their buts off to make it that way.

The shocking lack of solidarity on the streets of Sarajevo seems to have much to do with an effective campaign against the workers; much like was the case in Pittsburgh a couple of years ago. Granted, GRAS employees make more than most people here but the problem lies not in how much they make but in how little the rest of the folks do. They are “on the budget” at least on paper and much politicking goes into management of this company. And, as far as I can tell, at least in the past , the union leadership had transparency problems, in addition to very high financial resources.

Presently, they do seem to have decent union leaders, but they themselves show little solidarity for others. It is a delicate line to negotiate because I’ve heard even other unionists say GRAS workers have no right to “block the city” when in reality that is the only thing they have: the labor they can and should refuse to sell when the time is right. In my opinion, they should use this significant advantage for as long as it works. But they must fight a public relations campaign and a community campaign if they want to stay afloat.

This text was supposed to go out yesterday but “technical difficulties” prevented me from posting it, namely I lost my damned computer cord adapter. Adapter bought, mission resumed.

More on the problem of “mentality” (as most of my Bosnians refer to some imaginary reason for why things are bad in Bosnia or why activism fails) tomorrow…