The history of the Centre for Social Work (CSW)

Rather than trying to provide a comprehensive history of the post-Yugoslav welfare system, I focus on one significant local institution, the Centre for Social Work (CSW), in order to demonstrate the processes of local social policy formation under socialism and capitalism.

Transnational articulation processes were paramount in the formation of what became late socialist Yugoslavia’s “rather generous welfare system based on the principles of solidarity and equality” (Stambolieva 2011, 350). In the wake of World War II the need for state provision of social security was accepted by the new socialist authorities to address health and welfare problems like poverty, rural-urban migration, and what had been diagnosed around 1945 (and quickly silenced) as “partisan’s war neurosis” (Karge 2015). Initially, the ‘administrative workers’ and ‘social protection officers’ worked in the Antifascist Front of Women (AFŽ), the Communist Party, and the larger communities (Zaviršek 2008, 736; Dobrivojević 2013, chap.

3).

Early on, Yugoslavia also adopted Soviet welfare principles of social security provision based on the workplace (see Thelen and Read 2007, 7–8). After the break between Tito and Stalin in 1948, and “in accordance with the trends towards international cooperation with the

150 western countries, schools for social workers were founded in Yugoslavia. The first school was founded in Croatia in 1952 […], the second in Slovenia in 1955 and later, in 1958, schools were opened in Belgrade, Sarajevo and Skopje” (Ajdukovic & Branica 2009, 258–9). The generalised introduction of social work curricula and of social insurance schemes in the 1950s was supported by American advisors, and influenced by trips to Sweden and UN exchange programmes in the 1960s (Zaviršek 2008; Leskošek 2009, 240). The establishment of CSW throughout the country proceeded in parallel (see Zaviršek 2008, 738). As a result, the Yugoslav welfare state “was [one of] the first socialist state[s] that professionalized social work” beyond the family and the work place (Leskošek 2009, 239). For instance, it preceded the advanced Hungarian welfare state of the 1960s by a decade (see Haney 1999, 53–4).

The drive to professionalise the welfare system continued, and by the early 1970s it led to the establishment of university degree programmes of social work. In Belgrade University a Diploma of Social Work could be acquired at the Faculty of Political Sciences since 1974. By the late 1970s the curriculum included courses on social work and social policy (I, Dr. Biljana Sikimić, 12.7.2009). Professor Dušan Lakićević, who influenced the emerging “socialist humanist” policy for decades, had already lectured at Belgrade’s Higher Education College for Social Workers (viša škola za socijalne radnike) established in the 1950s (Erčić, Lakićević, &

Milovanović 1967). Later, at the University Department, he authored the standard textbook cited above, which was recommended to me by his student Ana Čekerevac, a former social worker and presently Professor for Social Work in Belgrade and Podgorica (Montenegro).

Professor Čekerevac maintained that while the practice of social work had not always been up to its own high standards, the Yugoslav theory was very progressive (I, Prof Čekerevac, 23.10.2009). Besides social work, other disciplines producing employees for the CSWs included psychology, child pedagogy, defektologija,¹⁴² gerontology, and sociology. Health historians have only just begun to research the complex history and “proliferation” of psychoanalysis, psychology, and psychiatry in Yugoslavia, which “encouraged a more humanistic (as opposed to mechanistic) conception of mental illness” (Savelli 2013, 266, 288;

see Antić 2015). In any case, Siniša, whom we met in the entry vignette, studied family systems psychology in Belgrade in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The CSW in River City, Siniša’s workplace, had been founded in 1960 and was initially

“linked to the Health [sector]” (I, social worker Ana, 9.12.2009). At the outset, it had operated in the nearby varošica (and centre of the rural municipality) Big Village. At some point in the late 1960s the CSW was relocated to River City, the new urban core of the enlarged

142 Defektologija translates roughly as special needs pedagogy.

151 municipality of over 100,000 inhabitants (see Chapter Three). In River City, the CSW was housed in the 100 year old two-storey building of a former brewery,¹⁴³ and was supervised by the city’s social sector. 40 years later the inhabitants of River City still referred to the municipal welfare administration as “the old social” (stara socijala) and the CSW as “the social”

(socijala). The long-term director (2005-2012), who had obtained her university degree in social work in Belgrade in the 1980s, explained the mandate of the CSW in this way:

First let me tell you what the Centre [for Social Work] is dealing with: the Centre fulfils many tasks (radi mnogo poslova) connected with social policy, some in the competence of the [central] state or the republic, regulated by juridical acts, some in the competence of the city [municipality] itself, for that the lawful basis is the decisions about the rights in the competence of the city (odluka o pravima iz nadležnosti grada). So I do not know what interests you, is it materially endangered persons or – we also work with divorces, with delinquents, we do adoptions, trusteeship/wardship (starateljstvo), placement in institutions, we do everything [pause] foster care (hraniteljstvo) (I, Director CSW, 17.07.2009).

As the quote illustrates, the CSW was a multipurpose institution with many obligations, political affiliations, and responsibilities. According to the CSW’s time-honoured street work approach called ‘territorial system,’ each social worker managed a couple of villages and city streets as their terrain (teren), performing all the duties enumerated by the director above. In this way, social worker Ana had been responsible for Upper Village.

Yugoslavia always had official unemployment and parts of the population were poor and needy, and it was a mandate of the CSW to care for them (Woodward 1995). By the 1980s the CSW even gained more responsibility, as the social security of the population worsened during a decade of economic crisis (Sundhaussen 2012, 205–19). At the end of the decade the Yugoslav leadership began the re-introduction of the market economy to rectify the dismal performance of the country’s self-managed economy. Between 1988 and 1991, the Socialist Republic of Serbia reformed its social policy system to meet the anticipated social problems.

One innovation was the introduction of a new minimum income for families and individuals in 1989. It was to be secured by a generous means-tested benefit called MOP, a newly unified social aid instrument to be managed and disbursed by the CSW.¹⁴⁴ Simultaneously the CSW administered a new “singular evidence system for users.” At this point “the Centre for Social Work truly became the central municipal institution of social work, social protection and social security” (Lakićević 1991, 389).

143 Office space was short. For example, the former beer cellar served to hand out New Year’s packages for the users.

144 MOP (Materijalno Obezbeđenje Porodice i Pojedinca) translates as Material Security for the Family and the Individual. Pioneered in the SR Slovenia, it was introduced in 1990 in Serbia and was linked to the average wage (40 % for one; 60 % for two; 75 % for three; 90 % for four; 100 % for five or more family members).

152 However, in the 1990s the situation deteriorated more dramatically than expected in the ambitious law on social protection of 1991. Yugoslavia’s secessionist wars disrupted the social and economic fabric of the country and created large streams of refugees (see Chapter Four).

Throughout the 1990s, and especially after 2000, the number of the unemployed grew as the emerging semi-peripheral Serbian capitalist democracy shifted its economic policies and, following the rather informal privatisations of the 1990s, instituted a tough privatisation programme.¹⁴⁵ First, this meant the dismantling of social security provided by the workplace.

Second, many privatised industries went bankrupt while those that survived shed jobs. Third, in 2008 the global financial crisis hit Serbia and diminished the volume of economic activity further. Thus, “[t]he employment rate fell from 54 % [in 2005] to 50.3 % [in 2010], and it is especially low for women (42.2 %), and young people aged 15-24 (15 %)” (Perišić and Vidojević 2013, 3). Private employers were often in arrears with the payment of workers’ social contributions so that the latter had difficulties accessing health and pension benefits. Despite rising unemployment, in 2010 the number of people who received unemployment benefits stagnated at only 1.1 per cent, while the number of people living in absolute poverty rose from 6.9 to 9.2 per cent (Perišić and Vidojević 2013, 3,6–7).¹⁴⁶

In contrast to the unemployment agencies, the CSWs increased their help to the needy, although the coverage of social aid benefits remained minimal, and their worth stagnated since 2001 below the poverty line. In the law on social protection of 1991, MOP for a single person had been calculated at 50 per cent of the average wage (more generous than when introduced in 1990). Throughout the 1990s, the value of MOP had deteriorated in parallel with the average wage because of inflation. The net worth of the salaries and of MOP was subsequently not restored to pre-war levels, partly because of the low bargaining power of the syndicates. After the opposition overturned Milošević on October 5, 2000, the new government amended the law on social protection in October 2001 – and drastically decreased MOP by two thirds to 16 per cent of the average wage (MWSP 2001, Articles 10, 11).¹⁴⁷

Starting with the 2001 amendments of the law on social protection, the national social policy began to shift “more and more responsibility towards the families,” reducing expenses for the national budget (Interview, Director, 8.12.2009). In 2009 even the World Bank (WB) suggested to the Serbian government to significantly increase the spending on MOP (which was at a very

145 Organised opposition against the privatisations came from the nationalist-conservative Serbian Radical Party (SRS), a predecessor of the later austerity enforcing Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) (Vetta 2011).

146 Unemployment benefits were generally only paid for the first half year.

147 The 2001 reduction of MOP by two thirds went through all family sizes. The maximum number of family members taken account of remained at five, continuing the tradition of disadvantaging large families.

153 low 0.12 per cent of GDP).¹⁴⁸ There was indeed some subsequent increase of the coverage of the population with MOP. Thus, between 2008 and 2013 the number of households receiving cash welfare benefits and child allowances increased from 50,000 to 120,000 households, which amounted to 2 per cent of Serbian households or 8.6 per cent of the poor (Perišić and Vidojević 2013, 11).

Internal criticism

This adverse constellation provided the background to the trenchant criticism of the social workers which Dunja (b. 1955, who we met in Chapter Four) shared with me. Like many in her generation, her professional and life experience had made her receptive to the social consequences of the complex changes.¹⁴⁹ Dunja said: “I more and more come to the conclusion that we are the ‘usual suspects for everything’ (dežurni krivci za sve)” (I, Dunja, 6.9.2013).

Social workers were indeed sometimes scapegoated for economic policies which they could not influence – working with the most stigmatized population and receiving the brunt of dissatisfaction of the excluded citizenry. I learnt that the social question was “no priority” in the Serbian state – rather investments (I, Dunja. 21.9.2009).

My critical interlocutor struggled not to despair in view of the hardship she saw daily. Dunja once observed that the social situation had “only worsened” since she graduated from Belgrade’s Higher Education College for Social Workers in 1980. For six years afterwards she had been unemployed, until she found work in the welfare branch of a social enterprise in River City (I, Dunja, 16.9.2013). In the mid-1990s Dunja’s enterprise became insolvent and she was part of the workers’ delegation that unsuccessfully negotiated the future of their firm. This way she met the future Mayor of River City, who was then a union organiser. Dunja became an early member of his party and was employed as his technical secretary. At the same time she also became member of the municipal supervisory board of the CSW (član upravnog odbora) (I, Dunja, 21.9.2009). In 2004 Dunja quit as secretary for the mayor, who had meanwhile become a minister in the Serbian government and needed less support. For half a year Dunja worked as an informal carer for the elderly, then she applied for a position in the CSW. In her opinion the then director, who feared to lose her position because of a certain scandal, was not aware that

148 The WB argued for reduced state expenditure combined with a higher efficiency of policy programmes and benefits, to counter the effects of the World Financial Crisis on taxes. The WB saw MOP as a well targeted benefit (70 percent of payments went to the poorest quintile), underfinanced in comparison to new EU member states known for low social expenditures (Poland, Latvia, and Estonia). Thus it was recommended to raise the MOP payments per individual and to enlarge the number of recipients (WB 2009, 48–50).

149 Social workers with Higher Education college degrees formed the majority of the older generation of CSW professionals. They were ineligible for management positions, which required a university degree plus five years of practice.

154 Dunja had forfeited political backing, and employed her in the hope to be secure. However, within another year the director lost her position, and her successor, whom I cited above, instigated a kind of “mobbing” of “political opponents” (I, Dunja, 21.9.2009). Given their political differences, Dunja did not shy away from explaining to me the widely held (but typically concealed) professional view among the rank and file that the present Director did

“not understand the essence of social work.”¹⁵⁰

What incensed Dunja was how the CSW was now led autocratically, and nobody dared to voice concerns. Especially since the last municipal elections in 2009, the Director feared losing her position and tried to enforce an impeccable bureaucratic record to provide no occasion for her replacement. According to Dunja, the Director now controlled her workers with an “iron fist” and exhorted them to focus on “formalities.” Dunja especially criticised that the Director checked all the files and often returned them to be rewritten e.g. for sloppy handwriting. This bureaucratic tug of war was embedded in the 2008 national regulatory changes in social work procedures (MWSP 2008), which followed the globalised audit culture of “governing by numbers,” i.e. “reducing complex processes to simple numerical indicators and rankings for purposes of management and control” (Shore and Wright 2015, 22). Yet, Dunja alleged that even the supervisors from the Ministry for Work and Social Policy (MWSP) accepted that the rules and regulations were hard to accomplish. If a needy person died of hunger, Dunja quipped, that seemed unimportant to the Director, but when the review (nadzor) came, everything had to be flawless (I, Dunja, 21.9.2009).¹⁵¹

To see how the social workers navigated their inclusive politics of distribution despite growing financial and bureaucratic difficulties, I return to my case study.