Hotel Marina closed in the middle of summer season

A scandalous thing happened in Selce. The owner of the four star hotel Marina Ivan Klokocki decided to close the hotel in the middle of summer season and he sent 30 employees to the employment agency.

Unfortunately, this was just the expected ending of the story which has been going on for months. The fact is that workers haven’t received any salaries since the beginning of this year and they were supposed to get paid for seven months work because the hotel is opened throughout the whole year.

-I am very angry because we have been betrayed. It is terrible- that was all that we could hear from a very upset worker Dragica Pobor.

Her colleague Svjetlana Radetic, who has been working in the hotel pastry department for 8 years, was more talkative. She is also the leader of the strike committee.

She said that it is sad that the first money they are going to get on their personal accounts this year is unemployment benefit instead of a salary. It is not important who is in charge any more. Is it our employer or the Ministry of Finance? We don’t care because it is too late – said Svjetlana Radetic fighting back the tears.

The owner on the verge of tears as well

The owner Ivan Klokocki was also on the verge of tears. He had to take this drastic action because the workers have been on strike for almost a month now. Therefore the number of guests declined from 120 to 27. The national basketball team also cancelled their booking five days ago. So the most modern four star hotel has been turned into a bed and breakfast place.

- Unfortunately this is a tragedy which could have been prevented. But there was no will to do it. It happened because of sloppy work of the state institutions. They have tried blackmailing as well. I offered to mortgage the hotel until the problem is solved, but it didn’t help either because obviously the truth about the whole case is not supposed to be revealed – said Ivan Klokocki.

According to his words, the tax administration of Karlovac imposed a tax of 2.7 million kn on non-existing duties. They did this by acting illegally and using forgery. His account has been blocked for this amount although he received the decision of the Constitutional Court and the report from Karlovac County state attorney. He said that both decisions were favorable for him. Of course, they don’t want to make any comments in the tax administration office.

 The regional representative of Tourism and Service Trade Union of Croatia Loredana Gluhak said that this again was another sad Croatian story. According to her, there was no will or courage to say whose fault it was.