A third round of negotiations between healthcare sector unions and the government on Monday ended inconclusively over a proposed wage increase and the talks will resume on Wednesday with the unions saying that the government thinks it has bought some time with this move.

“These are not new negotiations but this is about an annex which has already been negotiated. I wouldn’t say that anything important occurred at the meeting regarding employees’ status. We are waiting for what is most significant, working conditions and salaries and that is still far from even being started to be discussed,” Brankica Grguric of the nurses’ union said on Monday.

“Naturally, we will wait for negotiations on working conditions and salaries that will continue on Wednesday,” unionist Stjepan Topolnjak added.

He underscored that their demands are still on the table and that “now they are going through some articles that need to be defined due to new members in the government’s negotiation team.”

“We will not insist on those articles that have already been agreed to but we will insist on those articles that regard the financial aspect,” said Topolnjak.

He added that they insist on the agreed financial part which was initialled with Health Minister Milan Kujundzic.

“That is an increase of 7% — 3% plus 4% — and we will not back down from that,” he underlined.

Asked whether the government has bought time with this and that the strike had been avoided, the unionists said, the government only thinks so.