Students: We Will March With Workers to Cabinet

The public service unions have called their members in Zagreb to attend the strike which has been announced for May 11, 2009.

“The crisis will not be broken over our backs”, “You can take our salaries, but not our pride”, Hell is empty, the devils are outside”… are some of the messages that more than 1,000 members of the public services union heard from their representatives today.

The public services unions have called their members in Zagreb to attend the strike which has been announced for May 11, 2009. After a failed attempt at reaching an agreement with the cabinet, union representatives said at the Economic-Social Committee that they are even more determined to attend the strike, which according to their opinion is unavoidable. How long the strike lasts depends on the cabinet, more precisely them fulfilling the demands. Their aim is, they stress, totally understandable and clear.

“The cabinet is either pretending to be silly or does not want to hear us, because they are too occupied with their seats! We are not seeking anything that does not belong to us, considering that we have already bared the burden of the crisis and accepted a six percent salary cut, are we seeking too much if we want a guarantee for the appropriate rise in salary when we exit the crisis. Is that too much??!! We are seeking a fair price for work and dignity, and not for everything to break over our backs –said all the representatives of the public services unions in their presentations.

The students from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences will join the public services protests. One of the students from the faculty who wishes to remain anonymous supported the unions by saying:

“The students will march with you to Mark’s Square” which caused a thundering applause.

Vilim Ribic, who demonstratively left the meeting of the Economic-Social Council yesterday, characterised the work of the Cabinet with an interesting metaphor:

“When we breed pigs then it is manufacturing, when we invest in raising children it is an expense!”

The union representatives have already called members of the unions in Rijeka and Osijek to a referendum, and after Zagreb they will come before their members in Split. The presidents voiced content and they considered that the strike will receive full support from members of the unions in all cities at the referendum. The union members will be able to give their opinion of the strike at the start of next week.