A Collective Agreement Signed at INA

This morning, the management of INA signed a collective agreement with the Independent Union of Energy, Chemistry and Non-Metals (EKN) and the Union of Oil Industry (SING), while the Union of INA Workers and INA companies ‘Inaš’ did not participate in the signing, it was learned from INA and the unions.

The new collective agreement applies from April 1 of this year and is valid until the end of the year, with an extended application of three months.

INA announced that the new collective agreement, despite the unfavorable economic environment, includes an increase in the material rights of workers through an increase in salary supplements, jubilee awards, the amount in which workers participate in the company’s success, sick leave compensation, and additional protection of the social status of workers in cases of organizational changes.

According to union sources, the most important news brought by the new collective agreement is the increase in the supplement to the base salary from 1,068 to 1,150 kuna and an increase in jubilee awards by 500 kuna for each category of workers. According to the new collective agreement, the employer will cover 70 percent of the salary cost for sick leave up to 42 days, and 90 percent of the salary for sick leave over 42 days.

The signing unions also believe that the provisions regulating the protection of workers in the event of their departure from INA due to the separation of some of INA’s activities have been improved.

However, the Vice President of the Croatian Association of Unions, Zdenko Mučnjak, under which Inaš operates, says that this union was not invited to sign the collective agreement because it did not reach an agreement with the employer on the amendment of the article of the agreement that regulates the possibility of transferring jobs performed by INA to other companies and individuals.

According to the old collective agreement, this was only possible with the consent of the union, and now the employer wanted to abolish this, justifying it by limiting entrepreneurial freedoms. The membership of Inaš did not agree to this amendment in a referendum, says Mučnjak. He adds that Inaš offered the employer a provision according to which the salaries of workers separated from INA, which actually concerns the staff of gas stations, would fall by a maximum of five percent in that case, with a guarantee of job retention for two to three years.

However, Mučnjak says, the employer insisted that the maximum salary drop could be up to 30 percent, and also offered compensation between 20,000 and 40,000 kuna gross per worker over a period of one and a half years, in order to mitigate the impact of salary reductions for 2,870 retail workers who, he says, according to the employer’s intentions, will likely transition to the newly established company Retail Services Ltd., within the INA group.

Mučnjak announces that Inaš will likely join the collective agreement that applies to all employees after it has been signed by two unions, as this is the only way they can negotiate social clauses.