Unions appeal to Ashdown to tackle ethnic discrimination in Bosnian company

Hoover's Online, 28 September 2002, 6:47pm

[News Reader] The Aluminij of Mostar branch of the metal workers trade union of Bosnia-Hercegovina has sent an open letter to the High Representative of the international community in our country, Paddy Ashdown. They are asking the High Representative to help them return to their jobs in this Mostar-based company.

[Reporter] Prompted by an earlier appeal by Ashdown to the citizens of Bosnia-Hercegovina and by implication to the Aluminij workforce for a high turnout in the 5 October elections, the trade unions express in their letter the desires and hopes of the workers of Bosniak and Serb nationality that the problems in this company will be solved. The High Representative is being asked within his powers to help the efforts to tackle, as the letter puts it, the problem of discrimination in this Mostar-based company. Frustrated by the inability of the local authorities to tackle this problem, the trade unions of the Bosnia-Hercegovina metal workers and Aluminij Mostar drew their special attention to the total absence of interest within this category of the population in the forthcoming elections.