Workers' Takeover Saves Iconic Bosnian Firm

Workers at Dita, a once famous detergent company in the northwestern town of Tuzla, are celebrating after the company's creditors decided not to liquidate the firm and sell its assets, but seek a strategic investor who would keep on all the current employees.

"We won," Dzevad Mehmedovic, head of the trade union of Dita workers, told BIRN on Wednesday.  

Mehmedovic and other Dita workers celebrated after Dita's creditors at a meeting in Tuzla on Tuesday jointly decided not to liquidate the firm despite the fact that the company's debts are larger than its assets.

Instead, the creditors agreed to seek new investors who would help to maintain and even boost production.

"The goal is the maximum recovery of production and identification of a strategic partner who would buy the firm - whose products are already on the market," Hajrudin Kunalic, the bankruptcy manager of Dita told Tuesday's meeting. "At this moment, we cannot satisfy the orders of the supermarkets," he added.

Dita was established 38 years ago by the salt mine company Sodaso. It started production of an Italian-licensed product, the powder detergent Ava, which became one of the most popular detergents on the market until the 1990s, when Yugoslavia broke up and war started.

Despite the war, production in Dita continued and the company distributed much of its production for free to citizens and institutions. After the war, the company launched its own line of products as the Italian partner had discontinued the Ava license, but it then faced troubles and closed after an unsuccessful privatization.

After years of stalled production and liquidity issues, workers at Dita decided to restart production on their own. Working only on their enthusiasm,...