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Yugoslavia Trade Unions
The Confederation of Trade Unions of Yugoslavia also was a
party-dominated mass organization. It had the constitutional
mandate of protecting the rights of workers and preserving the
self-management system. It also oversaw selection of delegates to
the Federal Assembly from economic enterprises and delegates to
the management bodies of those enterprises. The structure of the
confederation was the same as that of the party and SAWPY, but
the ruling body, the Council of the Confederation, did not allot
positions according to ethnic or regional quotas. Seats on the
presidium of the council were held by the national heads of the
Yugoslav trade unions and the presidents of regional trade union
councils. Party influence in the trade unions remained very
strong through the 1980s; virtually all officials were party
members, and worker membership in the unions, although voluntary,
was considered automatic in many enterprises.
In the Yugoslav self-managed enterprise system, there was no
true adversary function for unions or their officials, because
there was no true distinction between employers and employees.
Agreements were made between worker groups within and among
enterprises, cutting across union organizational boundaries
(see The Economic Management Mechanism
, ch. 3). The function of the
unions was to preserve party influence by selecting the members
of the workers' councils, to ensure that the enterprise was run
according to the self-management laws, and to protect the working
environment. Until 1987 union officials also were expected to
suppress "work stoppages," but they offered little resistance to
the increasing number of strikes between 1987 and 1990.
According to a 1986 national poll, 71 percent of workers
identified themselves as either members or officers of a trade
union, while 25 percent denied membership. These figures varied
considerably from official membership statistics, which claimed a
97 percent enrollment. Other poll results showed a lack of broad,
active support of the unions, even among members; the majority of
workers polled did not believe that the trade union system was a
useful institution in representing their interests, and a small
percentage of members took an active role in the organization.
Nevertheless, the presence of a genuine trade union structure
controlled at the enterprise level was a significant departure
from the enterprise politics of the "conventional" communist
states.
Data as of December 1990
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