All 4,500 workers of the Pula-based Uljanik shipyard will begin a general strike on Wednesday at 7 in the morning, after they have still not received their salaries for July, the Istria, Kvarner, and Dalmatia Union said on Tuesday.
The announcement came after another failed round of negotiations between the workers’ representatives and the company management. Negotiations are mandatory under the conciliation proceedings which had started last week.
Marina Cvitic, head of the Union, said that she was displeased with the current state of affairs in Uljanik, and that she believes the Uljanik management must step down.
The workers will strike on their work posts.
“This management is obviously incapable of normalising the situation in Uljanik, establishing regular financing of cooperators and suppliers, and is clearly unable to secure wages for workers as well. This is why there is pressure from the workers to force the management to leave because it has lost all credibility and their trust,” Cvitic said.
Uljanik workers are angry because their livelihood is at stake, their salaries for July are seven days late, and their despair and anger are justified, she said.
Under the collective agreement, the Uljanik workers were supposed to receive their salaries on August 15. Given that that day is a public holiday in Croatia, the salaries should have been paid the following day. Since they were not paid by August 17, they launched conciliation proceedings, which, under the law, last for five days. The period expires today.
The Union demands to know whether the government even recognises Croatian shipbuilding as a strategically important activity at all, she added.
“What horrifies me is that the management can look at this situation and say they feel zero responsibility for what is happening. If the management can sleep peacefully, then I believe they are not qualified to perform their function and should let someone else take responsibility for the workers’ livelihoods,” she said, adding it was the management’s moral duty to step down.
The shipyard’s management on Tuesday said that the restructuring programme of the Uljanik docks would create preconditions to intensify the production of ships of the Uljanik Group, which includes the 3. Maj shipyard.
According to media speculations, the government is considering acquiring a stake at the troubled company, allowing it to pump in some 100 million kuna (€13.5 million) into the company to save it from bankruptcy.
(€1 = 7.4 kuna)
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