Employees of Hrvatski Telekom (HT) staged a protest in Zagreb on Saturday (March 17) against company's plans to cut jobs and reduce wages.

HT, which holds some 60 percent of the local telecom market, is majority-owned by Deutsche Telekom (DT). In February, the company announced some 60 lay-offs out of a workforce of less than 4,000.

Head of the Croatian Telecom Union (HST) Juko Cvitojevic said the workers demand to negotiate with the management as equal partners, and added that the number of employees has been cut by half over the last four years, with the company continuing to lay off some 150-200 people every year.

He added that full-time employees keep getting laid off and are increasingly replaced by part-time and agency workers with lower salaries. Workers in HT’s retail centres get an average gross monthly salary of 6,000 kuna (800 euros), which has been reduced by 15 percent in the new employment contracts offered.

In response, the company’s management issued a press release on Saturday, saying 94 percent of employees have signed new contracts which changes the salary system and envisions an additional, variable, part of wages which might increase existing worker’s salaries by up to 30 percent.

The company added that salaries paid to employees at the company are above Croatia’s average, and that gross salaries at HT centres are expected to increase to around 8,800 kuna under the new system.