A strike of judicial employees, organised by the Union of State and Local Civil Servants and Employees (SDLSN) demanding a salary increase, began on Monday morning at 7 am, and the Zagreb County Court will announce at 10 am whether the strike is legal.

The president of SDLSN, Iva Suskovic, confirmed tothe Croatian state news agency Hina this morning that the strike has started.

According to the preliminary estimates from the field, employees of about 80 courts in Croatia are participating, with branches at about 27 municipal state attorney’s offices and 14 county state attorney’s offices. It is a short time for everyone to confirm from the field, considering that some of them came to work only at 7:30 a.m., she added.

“The way things are now, everyone is participating. There is no problem anywhere in the sense that they are not allowed,” Suskovic told Hina.

The strike was announced in all bodies of the judicial authority and the state attorney’s office where SDLSN has its members. The union is demanding a €400 salary increase for the lowest-ranking employees in the judiciary and regulation of negotiations for officials and employees in the judiciary.

On Friday, the County Court in Zagreb passed a temporary decision rejecting the Government’s proposal to impose temporary measures prohibiting the organisation of a strike by court officials, and the ruling on legality is expected today.

The court rejected the Government’s proposal to determine a temporary strike prohibition measure which, as the Government claims, could cause irreparable material damage to the general public and the prosecutor who is obliged to ensure the exercise of judicial power.

The government asked for a ban on the strike, considering it illegal because the SDLSN is asking for an increase in the coefficient for employees in the judiciary, and this cannot be negotiated because the coefficients are regulated by the government decree.

The Government assesses that the strike is illegal because SDLSN lost its trade union representativeness after part of its membership transferred to the police unions, which made them representative of all civil servants and state employees.

The independent trade union of MUP employees and the Croatian Police Union signed a collective agreement with the Government earlier, which is in force until the end of the year, and with it they obliged all officials and employees to social peace.

The court clerks’ strike begins after the judges reached an agreement on salary increases with the Ministry of Administration and Justice the day before last Wednesday, following a two-week white strike.

Justice Minister Ivan Malenica said earlier on Friday, before the County Court’s decision, that the State Attorney’s Office filed a lawsuit to ban court officials from striking because they are not authorized to go on strike and there are no reasons why a strike would be justified.

He added that in 2019, 70 percent of court officials and employees received higher coefficients, and the rest of them, approximately 20 percent, received an increase in coefficients at the beginning of this year. He said that the salary base has also increased, and collective bargaining is expected at the end of the year.