Several Hundred Public Transport Employees, Students Protest in Central Belgrade

gsp protest (BETAPHOTO/PAVLE TODOROVIC)

Several hundred employees of the Belgrade public transport utility GSP and students blocked Republic Square in central Belgrade on Feb. 20, after the expiration of the deadline for a response to their demands to Belgrade Mayor Aleksandar Sapic and the city authority, pertaining to the enterprise’s functioning.

The blockade began at 10:30 a.m. and lasted half an hour, during which the streets leading to Republic Square were closed. The banners at the protest read: “Trolley buses are not a problem, they are the heroes of this city” and “Next stop: STRIKE.” The president of the Center GSP Belgrade trade union, Ivan Bankovic, told BETA that there were no new deadlines for the response to the GSP employees’ demands. “If the mayor and city authority continue to ignore the workers of GSP, it will be up to the workers to decide on further steps, which do not exclude a possibility of a blockade of crucial city traffic arteries where public transport operates, and the possibility that remains open as a last resort is strike, in keeping with the law,” Bankovic told BETA.

During a protest on Feb. 5, seven GSP trade unions delivered four demands to the city authorities – that the City of Belgrade does not enter a public-private partnership that would abolish trolley buses and replace them with electric buses of the private transporter Strela from Obrenovac, and that the city authorities guarantee that GSP remained the user of the Dorcol trolley bus depot and that the depot would not be ceded to any third party.