Croatian Union Protests on April 21 to 24

The week before the local elections there will be a strike. To prepare they will organize protests in Osijek, Rijeka, Zagreb and Split.

Next week the pubic services unions will hold protests between April 21 and 24. They will be held in Croatia’s largest cities as preparation for a strike that has been announced one week before the local elections, between May 11 and 15.

The protests will be held at the Faculty of Economics in Osijek on April 21, in Rijeka’s “Neboder” Hotel on April 22, in Zagreb’s student centre on April 23, and at Split’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering.

Commissioners and members of the unions from education, science, healthcare, culture and welfare will participate at the protests. These people represent 70 percent of the 180,000 employees in public services, report the union workers.

After that, all subsidiaries of the public services unions will hold a referendum between April 27 and 29, where people will declare if they are prepared to participate in the strike in order to defend the price and dignity of their work.

If most decide they want a strike, it will be organized between May 11 and 15, and it will most probably not be a one day strike, but a combination of strikes until their demands are met.

The public services unions stress that in times of crisis, they accept lower salaries, but they want to secure that the different will be paid back to them once the country come out of the crisis.