On Tuesday, the second day of sanitation workers' strike, the chairman of the management board of the Zagreb Holding multi-utility conglomerate, Ivan Novakovic, said that the strike is illegal because the collective agreement has been fully respected, and called on workers to return to work.

“As long as the collective agreement is being fully respected and the conciliation process is underway, which is the case with the Cistoca company, we consider the strike to be illegal. We invite workers to return to work, and the unions back to the negotiating table,” Novakovic told a press conference.

Zagrebacki Holding has taken into account inflation and the increased pressure on workers due to the introduction of a new model of waste collection, which is why negotiations with unions on increasing the material rights of workers were initiated last autumn, Novakovic added.

However, since the negotiations were not successful, we started a conciliation process.

“Holding has gone through a painful process of restructuring, getting out of the crisis and repairing losses. We simply do not have the money for a significant increase of material rights,” said Novakovic.

He underscored that the average increase in the monthly net wage for January ranges between €74 for workers in higher job complexity categories and €94 for utility workers.

In case the strike continues, there is a possibility that someone else takes over the waste collection, Cistoca’s manager Davor Vic said.

“That is the last thing I would want to happen. Zagreb needs a public company to deal with waste removal. That is in the public interest,” he added.