RED DISTRICTS VIII, 1980 - 2009

RED DISTRICTS VIII – Iskra Factory Trbovlje, signed and stamped by Laibach

The 1946 Constitution in Yugoslavia guaranteed women the same right to work and similar pay as men. Zasavje was an industrial basin where men were employed in large numbers, but women's jobs were infinitely fewer. That is why 'women's' factories started to open And the Iskra semiconductor factory in Trbovlje was one of the factories in the Red Districts area that was originally set up to employ a female workforce. When it opened in 1964 it was considered a high-tech company–dealing as it was with diodes, transistors and selenium cells – things that the workforce had no immediate knowledge of and had to acquire it. In 1979 designer Davorin Savnih designed the ETA 80 telephone. Its extremely pure design represented an innovative solution at that time, and became the most copied product of Slovenian design around the world.

Mass employment factories for women symbolised the post-war era in the Red Districts almost as heavily as mining represented the male workforce. But just as the century neared its end so the lifecycle of women’s factory boom ebbed to its own conclusion. During Slovenia's independence, factories fell one by one and hundreds of thousands of female workers lost their jobs. The reason was mainly economic: the price of labour was too high in comparison to competition from the Middle and Far East. The jobbing businesses did not bring sufficient profits, even though the work of the women’s factories of Zasavje was respected for quality, productivity and valued, without exception. 

The women's factories in Trbovlje and the Red District area were crucial in the social "resurrection" of women. Although the work was arduous, women were more independent and self-confident because of their own earnings. This was evident even when women's "factories" were being closed down. 

But Iskra itself survived and recently Katapult, the business accelerator backed by Dewesoft, that is giving a new impetus to Trbovlje's economy recently, opened a 1,500 square metre base, in part of the Iskra factory premises where diodes were once assembled. 

With Katapult, Trbovlje's economy is repeating Iskra's pioneering days. Now, on the ruins of the post war factories and industries, companies are springing up to give a new impetus to the region: from Iskra, the Katapult has risen. 

Laibach is collaborating with both, Dewesoft and Katapult, and has created the Assimilator project with their help. 

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