Workers at the troubled Pula-based Uljanik shipyard started a new strike on Monday at 7 am, after their salaries for September - due on October 15 - have not been paid.
“We asked for the management to come and meet workers, to explain why the salaries haven’t arrived. They did not come to meet us. We asked for (Uljanik CEO, Gianni) Rossanda to resign. Our message to him is – Rossanda must step down today!” leader of the striking committee Boris Cerovac said after meeting with striking workers.
Around 1,500 of them took to the streets of Pula around 10 am.
The striking workers are also demanding the government to appoint two new members of the supervisory board, and to speed up the drafting of the company’s restructuring plan.
“If this doesn’t happen, we’ll be in Zagreb tomorrow!” Cerovac said.
According to Cerovac, the current management has lost both legitimacy and credibility to do something about resolving the company’s agony.
VEZANE VIJESTI
The fresh strike adds to the troubled shipbuilding group’s woes, which was recently hit by a string of cancelled orders, as well as blocked bank accounts.
The restructuring plan, intended to stave off bankruptcy at the company which owns two major shipyards in the country – the Uljanik shipyard based in the city of Pula and 3. Maj in the city of Rijeka – was rejected by the European Commission, which reportedly had 75 objesctions to the original plan.
The plan, which originally envisioned that the €584 million restructuring of the company would be covered 60 percent by the government, was taken back to the drawing board, with Uljanik management still saying they are working on it.
Meanwhile, the company has no funds left to pay out salaries for some 4,000 workers at Uljanik and 3. Maj, with July and August salaries paid out only after the government had stepped in to reprogramme an earlier loan issued to the company by the state-owned HPB bank.
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