After receiving their delayed July wages on Friday, which ended their eight-day strike, the workers at Pula's Uljanik shipyard were back at work on Monday.

According to the head of the striking committee, Djino Sverko, who is also member of the shipyard’s supervisory board, the several unions active at the shipyard now formed a new coordinating body.

The body “will follow the restructuring programme, among other things,” Sverko said. The content of the plan, which is designed to save the shipyard and which was sent by the government to the European Commission for approval, was never released to the public.

However, the local daily Glas Istre had obtained and published a summary of the plan last week, and said that it includes laying off 600 out of 2,600 workers at the shipyard, with plans for the shipyard including investing some 225 million kuna (€30.3 million) into redeveloping part of its facilities located in the Pula bay, to turn it into a marina.

According to Sverko, the shipping company which had ordered the Scenic Eclipse polar cruise ship which is currently under construction at Uljanik has brought in foreign workers on Friday afternoon to continue working on the ship.

The luxury ocean liner, ordered by a company which is part of Australia’s Scenic Group, is intended to sail in both polar and tropical regions of the world.

Uljanik’s unions on Friday had invited Economy Minister Darko Horvat to a meeting at which they said they “want to get answers, and have their doubts cleared up , concerning the restructuring plan, the diversification of the shipyard’s business, and the role of the strategic partner in future activities.”

Meanwhile, the workers of Rijeka’s 3. Maj shipyard, which has around 1,300 employees, and is also part of the Uljanik Group, and who were also on strike last week over unpaid salaries, came to work on Monday.

However, the leader of the striking committee, Veljko Todorovic, there said that only minor work was now being done at the dock, as in spite of workers getting back to work, there is no raw material required to resume construction projects.

The 3. Maj crisis staff, which was formed last week and is made up of representatives of shipyard’s workers and local government officials, will meet again on Monday, Todorovic said, as the dock’s problems have not been solved yet. The talks would focus on ways to make sure that the shipyard’s bank account does not get frozen again due to debt, and also ways to procure materials needed for the shipyard to work, he added.

The crisis staff had first met last Friday, and said it supported the striking committee’s demands for the payment of delayed wages, the repayment of all loans which 3. Maj had given to its sister company Uljanik shipyard in Pula, the procurement of materials, the normalisation of shipyard’s shipbuilding activities and finances, as well as 3. Maj’s splitting off from the Uljanik Group.

(€1 = 7.41 kuna)

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