BELGRADE, Serbia-

Depending on where you go in this world you will find that the everyday worker/laborer has various levels of rights when it comes to established labor laws in their country. It could be argued that here in America we have it pretty good overall. Every single state has various unions, boards, organizations, and bureaus that oversee just about every aspect of the working world in the United States, so we can work and not think about how badly we are (or are not) getting screwed.

But that level of working security is not universal. Some countries likely have more oversight than we have, while others have virtually none. Take for example a state owned, textile factory in southwestern Serbia, called the Raska Holding. Back in the 1980s Raska Holding was a major textile producer that employed over 4,000 workers. During the collapse of the former Yugoslavia back in the 1990s, and the loss of markets and mismanagement during that decade, there were huge job cuts and now the once mighty Raska only employs 100 people. The crazy part is some workers for Raska have not been paid for extended period of time. And when I say extended I mean extended, as in years.

Not being paid for years is something that doesn’t compute in terms of how things are in the United States and two immediate questions come to mind: How would a worker make ends meet if they have not been paid in years? And second, why would they stay? The argument could be made that the country is so devastated by hard times that there’s nothing better available, but if you are not getting paid at all (for years) in the first place, how does it get any worse? I guess the bottom line is I cannot understand for any reason at all why someone would stay at any job if they had not been paid in years. Am I missing something?

So with workers working years and not getting paid this is already a strange story, but it does get stranger. One day while protesting this zero pay, a union leader, Zoran Bulatovic, said, “We, the workers, have nothing to eat. We have to seek some sort of alternative food.” His deputy, also very angry at the situation, said she would cut off her own finger to make a stand. She was a mother of three and Bulatovic did not want her doing such a drastic thing, so he took a hacksaw and cut off his own pinky before she could. Instead of giving the pinky to his bosses, he wanted to make an example of alternative things to eat, so he ate it. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you did read that right, the man ate his own pinky finger. Now I say, that’s really showin’ em who’s boss, Zoran. You sure did make your point, and I bet none of them will ever forget it. But again, I ask, is there something I am missing here? Is eating one’s own finger in a protest a cultural thing used to prove a point?

The moral of the story: Just like a prior post about a man who cut off his own ‘member’ for unknown reasons, when you feel the need to cut off ‘and eat’ your own finger, there may be a little more to it than just a salary dispute.

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