Croatia has about 100,000 active businesses, and at the end of 2021, a mere 580 collective agreements were in force regulating the rights and entitlements of approximately 670,000 employees, the Vecernji List daily said on Monday.

The collective agreements covered 47% of all workers, and this percentage was mainly due to collective agreements in the public sector.

In public companies owned by the state or local government, the coverage is between 75-80%. On the other hand, in private companies, a mere 36% of workers are covered by collective agreements.

A few years ago, the European Commission adopted a directive requiring the EU member states to boost collective bargaining and increase the coverage of workers by collective agreements to 70%.

The EC has co-funded a study by the Zagreb-based Institute of Public Finance on entitled “Bargaining for Equality”, conducted by researchers Predrag Bejakovic, Martina Pezer, Marko Tutek, and Marijana Badjun, the daily wrote.