VUKOVAR, Jan 10 (Hina) - The management of the footwear factory "Borovo" believes that the 2,320 non-assigned workers, who are to be laid off, are not responsible for losing their jobs and should therefore be provided for properly,
factory director Nino Bajza said at a news conference in Vukovar on Friday.
VUKOVAR, Jan 10 (Hina) - The management of the footwear factory
"Borovo" believes that the 2,320 non-assigned workers, who are to
be laid off, are not responsible for losing their jobs and should
therefore be provided for properly, factory director Nino Bajza
said at a news conference in Vukovar on Friday. #L#
"I believe that neither those people nor 'Borovo' can or should bear
the consequences of the war and war destruction on their own," Bajza
said. Bajza was supported by members of the factory's management
board, Vukovar County prefect Nikola Safer and Vukovar mayor
Vladimir Stengl, who also attended the news conference.
The non-assigned workers, who were to be laid off on January 1, have
still not been handed notices because the Employment Bureau had
returned to the company management for completion a draft plan of
care for the non-assigned workers.
Management board member Davor Arezina said the draft envisaged
severance pays amounting to 45 million kuna.
Director Bajza said that the company's management and supervisory
committee had suggested to the Croatian Privatisation Fund (HFP), a
100% owner of the company, to solve the problem of non-assigned
workers by leasing the company's immovable assets to the Vukovar
Business Zone. The assets, which have been estimated at 160 million
kuna, would help write off the company's debt to pension and
disability insurance funds and obtain money for the payment of
severance pays, which requires 84 million kuna. At the same time,
the company's drawing account would be unblocked.
However, three days ago, the HFP management board turned down the
proposal, Bajza said, adding that the HFP had "ordered its expert
services to exclude from the company's ownership the immovable
assets intended for the Vukovar Business Zone and transfer them to
the Fund for the Reconstruction and Development of Vukovar City".
The decision, Bajza claims, has caused damage to Borovo and its
1,300 workers who despite more than 300 million euros of damage
caused to the company by the war have contributed to keeping the
company's annual financial result positive for the last four
years.
The workers who are to be laid off are part of a group of some 7,000
workers who in 1991 were expelled from Vukovar with other Croats and
non-Serbs. By the end of 2002, solutions were found for 4,700
workers by transferring them to other companies, sending them into
retirement or employing them in Borovo's newly-established
daughter firms. As funds for pension and health insurance for the
remaining 2,320 workers were lacking, the company had to announce
the termination of their work contracts.
(hina) rml