The Chairwoman of the Workers’ Council and member of the Supervisory Board of Shipyard 3. maj, Nada Jelinić-Starčević, stated at a press conference that the biggest problem of the shipyard is the empty order book and that if new contracts are not signed, the slips will be completely empty after June next year.
She assessed that the Management is responsible for this situation, having missed opportunities to secure new contracts. She added that there are currently five ships in the order book, but they are ships that are under construction or about to be handed over. Nada Jelinić-Starčević noted that the best workers are leaving ‘3. maj’ due to wages and general insecurity, that ‘workers have been told that the empty order book benefits the new owner’ and that ‘there is an impression that the Management works more for future owners than for the workers’.
The Commissioner of the Metalworkers’ Union of Croatia (SMH) at ‘3. maj’, Juraj Šoljić, stated that at a meeting on October 11, where representatives of the relevant ministries, unions, and management discussed the conditions of the tender for the privatization of state shipyards, a new model was presented under which workers could acquire shares. Šoljić said that it was stated that the new owner would offer workers a package of shares at market price after the recapitalization of the shipyard, which SMH disagrees with, and will send a protest letter to the Government requesting that the original proposal be implemented, i.e., that the state retains a package of shares and develops a model under which they would be offered to workers under special conditions.
