HŽ Infrastruktura is not required to pay workers a six percent salary difference for the years 2009, 2010, and 2011, as sought through legal means by the Union of Infrastructure of Croatian Railways, since the Supreme Court has definitively ruled in favor of the Management, it was announced by HŽ Infrastruktura.
If the ruling had been in favor of the union, the cost for HŽ Infrastruktura would have been between 150 and 170 million kuna.
The previous management and unions signed a collective agreement in 2007, which included an annex stipulating a six percent annual salary increase. Two years later, the management and part of the unions signed an annex to the collective agreement agreeing that there would be no six percent increase in the hourly wage.
The Union of Infrastructure of Croatian Railways then initiated legal proceedings to establish the nullity of that annex, and that dispute has now been definitively lost.
This means that the employer calculated and paid salaries for the years 2009, 2010, and 2011 in accordance with the provisions of the valid Collective Agreement and is not required to pay the six percent salary difference for the three years.
Accordingly, all lawsuits and proceedings initiated by workers against the Management for the payment of the six percent salary difference are unfounded.
The current Management of HŽ Infrastruktura, led by Darko Peričić, previously called on workers to wait for the Supreme Court’s decision before suing the company and warned that in the event of losing the dispute, the Management would be forced to reduce the number of employees.
