Workers at the Pula-based Uljanik and Rijeka-based 3. Maj shipyards continued the strike they started on Friday morning over unpaid salaries for July, with payments expected to materialise later in the day.

The government said on Thursday it had provided state guarantees to the state-owned Croatian Postal Bank (HPB) for changing insurance instruments for earlier HPB’s loans to Uljanik from 2015 and 2016, which will make it possible to now pay wages in the group.

The shipbuilding group will therefore have the funds to pay out wages for July to workers, but not to the group’s management on Friday, the government said.

For the payment to be executed, Uljanik will withdraw its deposits on the loans (20 percent of the loans), while the government would expand its guarantee for the loans from 80 to 100 percent.

According to local media, the monthly wages for some 4,400 workers at the two shipyards amount to around 50 million kuna (€6.7 million).

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Thursday morning in a government session that a model had finally been found to pay Uljanik workers their wages for July and August.

Disgruntled workers of the Rijeka-based 3. Maj dock, which is part of the Uljanik Group, said they would continue their industrial action which they started on 22 August until wages are paid, and said that they would stage a protest rally in Rijeka on Monday if they did not receive overdue salaries on Friday.

Striking Uljanik workers have held a protest walk through Pula every day since the start of their strike.

In the ownership structure of the Uljanik dock, employees and small shareholders hold a 47 percent stake, the Croatia Osiguranje insurer has 9.93 percent, 7.7 percent is held by the Croatian Pension Insurance Fund (HZMO), etc.

(€1 = 7.41 kuna)

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