Page 156 - Mellinato, Giulio, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2022. Complex Gateways. Labour and Urban History of Maritime Port Cities: The Northern Adriaticin a Comparative Perspective. Koper: University of Primorska Press.
P. 156
plex Gateways
nicipal committee of the Party for his ‘subjectivity’. Presented without
any serious economic analysis, such views only caused dissatisfaction in
the collective, or so the local Party claimed.
And with good reason. At the time there were ‘minor work stoppages’
at the Port of Koper. The longshoremen took advantage of the situation
to demand better pay for their work. It was blackmail, or at least that is
how the Party described it. The Port, on the other hand, promised to con-
sider rewards for actual work performance. The local Party organization
reported to the CC LCS that it would take more than that. The Port man-
agement apparently lacked a real connection to its workers. There were
many meetings at the company, but only at the top. In other words, the
report hinted that the management of the Port of Koper was autocratic.
Challenging that view, Petrinja later recalled that the management bod-
ies ‘always eagerly solved particular problems concerning development
together with all the workers’. Petrinja did not deny that discipline was
a problem, and testified that some recently arrived workers were cooling
enthusiasm for work by saying they ‘came here to make money and not to
work’ (Petrinja 1999, 7, 9). It is worth noting that in his memoirs, Petrinja
kept this cynical statement in Serbo-Croatian: ‘Došao sam da zaradim, a ne
da radim’. In this form, the statement was commonly used in Slovenia in
those days to express a prejudice against workers from the other Yugoslav
republics, that they lacked a work ethic. On the other hand, Petrinja high-
ly praised workers from Istria, Kras, and Brkini who apparently did not
mind working long hours (Petrinja 1999, 6). The same Party report men-
tioned Petrinja’s criticism of special federal benefits enjoyed by the Port
of Bar in Montenegro. For the Port of Koper, the reforms had in many re-
spects started even earlier. Already in May 1965, the Workers’ council of
the company liquidated as many as 33 ‘unnecessary jobs’. The council fur-
ther said it would cut 60 jobs in administration and maintenance (režijski
delavci) and curb future employment (AS 1589/IV, t. e. 1664, Informacija,
17 July 1965).
The kick off of the reform in the summer of 1965 posed many chal-
lenges and dilemmas. The municipal committee of the LCS of Koper, un-
der the leadership of first secretary Branko Gabršček, invited Stane Kavčič
for a Q&A in December. At the time, Kavčič was a secretary of the CC LCS,
and he held the position of president of its Ideological Commission. He
was still relatively young (46), had a working class background, and had
been a Party member since 1941. He was ambitious, and strongly advocat-
156
nicipal committee of the Party for his ‘subjectivity’. Presented without
any serious economic analysis, such views only caused dissatisfaction in
the collective, or so the local Party claimed.
And with good reason. At the time there were ‘minor work stoppages’
at the Port of Koper. The longshoremen took advantage of the situation
to demand better pay for their work. It was blackmail, or at least that is
how the Party described it. The Port, on the other hand, promised to con-
sider rewards for actual work performance. The local Party organization
reported to the CC LCS that it would take more than that. The Port man-
agement apparently lacked a real connection to its workers. There were
many meetings at the company, but only at the top. In other words, the
report hinted that the management of the Port of Koper was autocratic.
Challenging that view, Petrinja later recalled that the management bod-
ies ‘always eagerly solved particular problems concerning development
together with all the workers’. Petrinja did not deny that discipline was
a problem, and testified that some recently arrived workers were cooling
enthusiasm for work by saying they ‘came here to make money and not to
work’ (Petrinja 1999, 7, 9). It is worth noting that in his memoirs, Petrinja
kept this cynical statement in Serbo-Croatian: ‘Došao sam da zaradim, a ne
da radim’. In this form, the statement was commonly used in Slovenia in
those days to express a prejudice against workers from the other Yugoslav
republics, that they lacked a work ethic. On the other hand, Petrinja high-
ly praised workers from Istria, Kras, and Brkini who apparently did not
mind working long hours (Petrinja 1999, 6). The same Party report men-
tioned Petrinja’s criticism of special federal benefits enjoyed by the Port
of Bar in Montenegro. For the Port of Koper, the reforms had in many re-
spects started even earlier. Already in May 1965, the Workers’ council of
the company liquidated as many as 33 ‘unnecessary jobs’. The council fur-
ther said it would cut 60 jobs in administration and maintenance (režijski
delavci) and curb future employment (AS 1589/IV, t. e. 1664, Informacija,
17 July 1965).
The kick off of the reform in the summer of 1965 posed many chal-
lenges and dilemmas. The municipal committee of the LCS of Koper, un-
der the leadership of first secretary Branko Gabršček, invited Stane Kavčič
for a Q&A in December. At the time, Kavčič was a secretary of the CC LCS,
and he held the position of president of its Ideological Commission. He
was still relatively young (46), had a working class background, and had
been a Party member since 1941. He was ambitious, and strongly advocat-
156
