Workers at the Uljanik shipyard in the northern coastal city of Pula once again went on strike on Thursday, welding the gates at two of three entrances to the dock in an effort to compel the government to urgently decide on the future of the shipyard and its workers.

“We are on strike again as of today as we did not get any positive information from the government or Uljanik’s management,” the chairman of the strike committee, Boris Cerovac, said.

He reiterated that workers demand that the government adopt the restructuring plan or obtain a loan to pay workers their wages which they haven’t received for the past seven months.

“Let the government make its decision as soon as possible. We don’t have any more time to wait. We want an urgent decision today. We don’t want ships to be pulled out of Pula, we want to finish them here. We started them and we want to finish them,” Cerovac said.

“It is due to the state, that is, the government’s negligence that we are losing a ship and paying unnecessary penalties and all that could have been avoided had there been a timely reaction. The gates to Uljanik will be blocked until further notice, until such time that a solution for the shipyard is found,” he said, adding that they would not allow subcontractors working on a cruise ship to enter the shipyard either.

Cerovac added that the strike committee had informed the management of their demands and that they expected the strategic partner, Tomislav Debeljak, to help and to state his opinion on the most recent development.

“We are not planning to go to Zagreb yet, even though we are considering that option…We are waiting for a response from our colleagues at the 3. Maj shipyard and call on them to join us in showing our dissatisfaction together,” he concluded.

According to Cerovac there are currently 2,740 workers in the Uljanik Group and 1,800 have left the Pula and Rijeka shipyards so far.

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