Road cleared, but district building remains blocked

Member of the protest organizing committee Momcilo Perovic told Tanjug that workers accepted the offer presented by representatives of the Office for Kosovo who at today's meeting pledged that the outstanding monthly allowances will be paid.However, workers of the public enterprises continued with the blockade of the Kosovo administrative district building in Gracanica which was imposed on Wednesday.Momcilo Nedeljkovic, a member of the organizing committee of the protest in Gracanica, told The press that they are still blocking the district building, demanding that their late payments for at least three months be settled. “Paying one minimum salary to workers does not mean anything. People are paying water and electricity bills here, which is not the case with those residing in northern Kosovo, so the payment of just one overdue salary would not mean much to us,” Nedeljkovic said. A meeting between Aleksandar Stojanovic, assistant director at the Office for KiM, and representatives of the independent trade union of workers in Kosovo, which was also attended by some representatives of the local self-government in northern Kosovo and head of the Kosovska Mitrovica District, was held in Kosovska Mitrovica earlier on Thursday. After the meeting, Stojanovic said that the payment of temporary allowances to workers of the public enterprises in Kosovo will start "in a matter of hours”, and underscored that not a single job position in the province will be quashed.Serbia will first pay the allowance for one month, and later the remaining ones, Stojanovic explained, giving rise to dissatisfaction among workers who expected that the entire sum amounting to seven monthly allowances will be paid at once.