SISAK IRONWORKS SISAK, Nov 9 (Hina) - The chief commissioner of the Croatian Metal Workers Union in the Sisak Ironworks, Ivica Kenda, has said the workers expect their agreement with Vice-Premier Slavko Linic to be respected and their
three overdue salaries to be paid by the end of this month. If this does not happen and if no solution is found to the problem of the Sisak Ironworks, the union will launch other activities, "which will not stop with road blocks", he said.
SISAK, Nov 9 (Hina) - The chief commissioner of the Croatian Metal
Workers Union in the Sisak Ironworks, Ivica Kenda, has said the
workers expect their agreement with Vice-Premier Slavko Linic to be
respected and their three overdue salaries to be paid by the end of
this month. If this does not happen and if no solution is found to
the problem of the Sisak Ironworks, the union will launch other
activities, "which will not stop with road blocks", he said. #L#
Union representatives, the trustee in bankruptcy Ilija Maric,
Sisak County prefect Djuro Brodarac and mayor Darko Pintaric on
Saturday discussed the fate of the Sisak Ironworks, which employs
1,700 workers. On November 4, the company's strategic partner, the
Russian-Austrian concern "Trubo Impex", abandoned the partnership
agreement, leaving the company in bankruptcy. Another 270 workers,
employed at the company's plant "Remont Caprag", have been on
strike since October 2.
Labour Minister Davorko Vidovic and the head of the State Fund for
Development and Employment, Milan Stojanovic, were invited to the
meeting, but had to attend a meeting of their Social Democratic
Party. They supported the talks in Sisak and the survival of the
company.
After the talks, which were held behind closed doors, prefect
Brodarac said that "Trubo Impex" did not exist and that it was
actually a consulting agency which provided services for other
partners, in this case the former owners of the Sisak Ironworks.
He dismissed claims that the situation in the Sisak Ironworks was
being politicised. Commenting on Vice-Premier Slavko Linic's
statement that the company's management was responsible for the
current situation, Brodarac said that in the past 12 years the
company management had changed its reorganisation programmes a
dozen times at the government's request and that experts had drawn
up four recovery and development programmes.
The former government paid the workers their wages, the problems
started because the incumbent government failed to back the
Ironworks and because "Trubo Impex" was chosen as the strategic
partner, Brodarac said.
Union representative Darko Idzakovic said that all participants in
the meeting agreed that the Ironworks should continue operating.
The Ironworks is not only Sisak's problem, he said, adding that the
company was the country's only iron producer.
The trustee in bankruptcy, Ilija Maric, said that two strategic
partners from West Europe were interested in buying the company.
Their representatives have already visited the company and talks
with them are underway, Maric said, adding that unionists would be
informed about the course of the talks.
(hina) rml