BLOCKING TRAFFIC WOULD WORSEN POSITION OF LABOUR FORCE -- UNION

ZAGREB, May 4 (Hina) - Announcements by president of the Association of Croatian Homeland war Military Invalids (HVIDRA), Marinko Liovic, and president of the Croatian party of Rights (HSP), Ante Djapic, regarding the blocking of traffic and undercut the tourist season are tactless and multiply detrimental to the Croatian labour force, president of the Economic and Social Council, Vitomir Begovic, said on Thursday. Such kind of protest would lead to an even more difficult economic and social situation in the country, and would additionally aggravate the difficult position of the worker, Begovic told a news conference. Begovic represents unions at the Economic and Social Council, in which representatives of the government, unions and employees harmonise views. Besides a tourism debacle, other repercussions would be increased losses in traffic and shaken foreign investments, Begovic said. "Invokers of chaos expressing such radical ideas at a moment when the entire nation should be mobilised for work and increasing production, have previously secured themselves high salaries, apartments ... and numerous privileges," Begovic asserted. Reminded by a reporter that the Agriculture Union had recently blocked road traffic and threatened to block the Budapest - Zagreb railroad, Begovic said unions would no longer protest in such a manner. The road blocking was announced by Liovic in case he received no guarantees that the Government would not finance the return of Serbs at the expense of the rights of Homeland War soldiers, and the HSP said the cause of the protest would be the Government's policy of equalising the victims and aggressor in reconstruction, and diminishing of the dignity of the Homeland War. (hina) lml jn