Adriadiesel workers are on strike as of today, which is a continuation of the announced reaction to the failed mediation with the company’s management led by director Vladimir Hristov, who was unavailable today for any statements.
This announced strike, said the president of the workers’ council Vlatko Benković and the commissioner of the Metalworkers’ Union of Croatia Tihomir Vrbanić, began with today’s first shift, and the strike will continue, they stated, until the demands of 237 workers are met, which include the payment of salaries for March, April, and May.
During a lengthy mediation process facilitated by the Union, the workers were in negotiations with Hristov, seeking, as they say, and receiving certain promises that their requests would be met, and that the salary for March would be paid by mid-June, and for April by the end of June. The only thing that happened since then was the payment of the February salary at the beginning of the negotiations, and just as the contracting of new and seemingly permanent jobs for the continuation of the Russian nuclear program stalled, so did the payments, which the workers could no longer endure.
– It is important that we end this situation with this strike, which threatens only to deepen further debts unless resolved either by paying the arrears or by the increasingly likely entry into pre-bankruptcy settlement, which might, under these circumstances, also be good for resolving inter-ownership relations. We believe that the director should seriously talk with the interested Russian investor in Adriadiesel, as well as with the main shareholders, namely Jadranska ulaganja of Danko Končar, the state directly and indirectly through ‘Uljanik’, as they all hold equal one-third ownership shares in Adriadiesel, but it seems that none of them cares about the survival of Adriadiesel. It is strange that the most interest has recently been shown by the Russian partner through whom our engines for Russian nuclear power plants go, and who is, as far as we know, very interested in taking over Adriadiesel, said Benković and Vrbanić.
