After the latest round of the negotiations between unions representing government and public service employees and the government on Tuesday, unionists told reporters that they would refuse the government's proposed 2-percent salary rise.

Head of the police union SPH, Dubravko Jagic, said that today’s round of the talks failed to produce any results, and that the unions representing government employees insisted on an 8-percent rise for the baseline salary.

Unions of employees in the education and health care systems said they insisted on a series of increases over three years, with a 4 percent rise the first year, followed by another 2 percent in the second year, after that another 2 percent in the third year.

“We have presented our offer again (of a 2-percent rise). We offered some increases in allowances for commuters,” Labor Minister, Josip Aladrovic, told reporters after the meeting, adding that “a set of collective agreements are now supposed to be hammered out.”

Asked by reporters whether there the government fears any strikes over the negotiations, Aladrovic ruled them out.

“We do not want to threaten with industrial actions, we simply want our status to be improved,” Jagic, head of the police union SPH, told reporters.