{"id":4472,"date":"2018-10-27T15:10:44","date_gmt":"2018-10-27T13:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/?p=4472"},"modified":"2018-10-27T15:12:57","modified_gmt":"2018-10-27T13:12:57","slug":"kosovo-unions-back-cancellation-of-workers-day-holiday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/kosovo-unions-back-cancellation-of-workers-day-holiday\/","title":{"rendered":"Kosovo Unions Back Cancellation of Workers\u2019 Day Holiday"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

PRISTINA – Labour unions in Kosovo support a proposal from ruling Democratic Party MP Nait Hasani to remove International Workers\u2019 Day on May 1 from the country\u2019s list of the official holidays.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Union representatives told BIRN that they support MP Nait Hasani\u2019s initiative to remove several holidays from the country\u2019s official list, including International Workers\u2019 Day.<\/p>\n

The head of the Healthcare Trade Union Federation, Blerim Syla, told BIRN that the initiative still needs to be approved by the Kosovo Assembly, but argued that May 1 is a relic of the Yugoslav era.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the majority of European countries this is actually not an official holiday, and if our aim is to join Europe, this should be the case in our country\u2026 we came from the communist system of former Yugoslavia and we were used to having a day off on May 1,\u201d Syla said.<\/p>\n

He added that there should be no complaints about the change if it happens.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should have reactions to demanding our rights, not to a day off,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mursel Zymberi, the head of Civil Servants\u2019 Union, said his organisation also backs the proposal, arguing that May 1 \u201cwas treated more as a holiday since before the war, from the previous system of the former Yugoslavia\u201d.<\/p>\n

May 1 should be \u201cmore of a protest demanding workers\u2019 rights\u201d rather than a holiday, Zymberi said.<\/p>\n

Avni Ajdini, head of the Union of Independent Trade Unions of Kosovo, also the fact that Kosovo marks May 1 as a holiday as \u201ca bad syndrome that has remained from the past\u201d.<\/p>\n

He also argued that May 1 should be a day of protest for workers\u2019 rights, such as \u201cdemands for salaries, working conditions, health insurance, dignified pensions, maternity leave and many other demands\u201d.<\/p>\n

A delegate of Anarcho-Syndicalist Group of Pristina, who asked not to be named, noted that May 1 was initially a commemoration of a workers\u2019 rights protest in Chicago in 1886.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us it doesn\u2019t really matter if it is an official holiday or not, we will be on the streets [protesting]\u2026 It is really important to us to have a day dedicated to workers and their revolt,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The representative added that in the former Yugoslavia, the state portrayed itself as respecting workers\u2019 rights, \u201cbut at the same time, Yugoslavia also violated workers\u2019 rights, but in different way\u201d.<\/p>\n

He argued that this concept was inherited by Kosovo, but \u201cnow they want to remove this because there is a kind of neoliberal ideological domination in which the worker\u2026 exists as an individual who has monetary value in the market economy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch logic is very problematic, as is the initiative of Nait Hasani,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

International Workers\u2019 Day is a public holiday in Kosovo according to the Law on Official Holidays. It is also a holiday in many other countries around the world, including all the Balkan states.\/BalkanInsight\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PRISTINA – Labour unions in Kosovo support a proposal from ruling Democratic Party MP Nait Hasani to remove International Workers\u2019 Day on May 1 from the country\u2019s list of the official holidays. Union representatives told BIRN that they support MP Nait Hasani\u2019s initiative to remove several holidays from the country\u2019s official list, including International Workers\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[666,182],"class_list":["post-4472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-brief","tag-kosova"],"views":1442,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4472"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4474,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4472\/revisions\/4474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}