The Budget for Next Year Provoked Anger Among Unions

The Croatian Trade Union Confederation announced today that it will organize a warning strike on November 28 or 29, depending on when the discussion on the proposal for the state budget for next year will take place in the Croatian Parliament.

The reason for the strike is the announcement of a reduction in budgetary costs for employees in public and state services by 1.7 billion kuna, which means that the Government intends to save on union members associated with the Confederation (education, science, and nurses) by cutting material rights such as Christmas bonuses, severance pay, jubilee awards, or transportation allowances.

This is just the beginning of protests against the Government’s austerity policy, as strikes will continue throughout the year, and the largest and longest strike will be organized by the unions when they are strongest – at the end of the school year, union leaders announced at a press conference.

The President of the Confederation, Vilim Ribić, accused the Government of abusing and manipulating negotiations on the new Basic Collective Agreement (BCA) for public services, and part of the public service unions participating in the negotiations of “betraying” their membership.

The President of the Health and Social Care Union, Spomenka Avberšek, openly and unscrupulously works against her members and thus endangers the very essence of the union, Ribić stated. The Government is announcing cuts to salary supplements for which we have fought for years, and if we did not have betrayal in our ranks, we could resist this, Ribić said.

The union leaders of the Confederation are most bothered by the new Law on Representativeness, which has expanded the circle of unions that can participate in negotiations on the BCA, while simultaneously allowing the BCA to be valid if accepted by only one union of a specific activity.

Four unions of the Confederation rejected the Government’s proposal to amend the current BCA, which envisaged cutting material rights in exchange for preserving salaries and jobs, which is why the Government canceled that agreement and opened negotiations on a new BCA. The Confederation announced that it will not sign a new BCA either, but the Government can extend it to all public services even if only part of the unions accepts it.