SCHOOL UNIONS TO STAGE ANOTHER STRIKE ON NOVEMBER 12

ZAGREB, Nov 5 (Hina) - A negotiating committee of five school unions on Thursday decided to stage an all-day strike in elementary and high schools on November 12. The unions will protest to warn the government about its obligation to start negotiations on a model of selective salary rises for education employees, negotiating committee chairman Vinko Filipovic told reporters. The unions have based their demands on parliamentary conclusions on the said rises, from December 1997 and June 1998, and will go on strike to protest against the government's decision to pay out bonuses to teachers who did not participate in last December's and this June's teachers' strikes. The negotiating committee as of today becomes the strike committee, Filipovic said. Today the unions will acquaint the government with the strike announcement and initiate a reconciliation process, he explained, adding the government is expected to respond by Monday noon. In the absence of an answer, the strike will legally begin and the reconciliation process will end. According to Vesna Kanizaj, the president of the Independent Union of High School Employees of Croatia, another "strike of solidarity" in secondary schools, also scheduled for November 12, will go on regardless of the reconciliation outcome. Kanizaj added the "solidarity strike" will be called off only if the government revokes its decision to pay out the so called "Pugelnicas", financial bonuses for teachers who did not take part in the teachers' strikes. The bonus was named after Croatian Education Minister Bozidar Pugelnik. (hina) ha/sp lm