Government Offers Unions a 3% Salary Increase for Next Year

The government today offered public and state service unions a 3% salary increase in the second half of 2009, and the unions are to respond to this offer by next Wednesday.

Deputy Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor stated to reporters this evening after a meeting with leaders of 15 public and state service unions that under the new agreement their salaries would not increase in the first six months of next year, but would rise by 3% from July 1. The government and the unions would begin new negotiations in September, during which they would agree on salary increases for 2010, 2011, and 2012 based on an analysis of the situation in the country in the first eight months.

“We believe that the situation in Croatia will be better by then,” said Kosor, adding that the government wants to contract a salary increase of at least 6%, if circumstances allow. The government is not currently considering the possible cancellation of the agreement that guarantees public and state service employees a 6% salary increase in 2009. “We want to reach acceptable solutions through social dialogue to survive 2009, which is expected to be particularly difficult,” said the Deputy Prime Minister. The unions cannot accept the government’s offer at this moment, but they will respond by next Wednesday when they will present their counter-proposals, announced the president of the Croatian Medical Union, Ivica Babić.

Boris Pleša from the Union of State Officials and Employees emphasized that the union members do not intend to simply let go of the 6% salary increase guaranteed by the signed agreement. The government will provide the unions by Friday with an analysis of the projections of the state budget for 2009, which will show where all the savings have been achieved so far. It will also deliver a proposal for a Social Partnership Agreement under the new circumstances to all union headquarters and the Croatian Employers’ Association by Friday. (H)