HZ MANAGEMENT ON RESTRUCTURING OF CROATIAN RAILWAYS

ZAGREB, Dec 10 (Hina) - According to figures of the Croatian Railways (HZ) management, there are 3,065 HZ employees on strike, organized by Croatian Railway Workers' Trade Union, (out of total 22,000 employees with the company.) Strikers would receive 20 percent of their regular wage pay for first three days on strike, whereas the pay since December 1 would depend on damage and length of the strike. Employees who had not gone on strike would get full wage pay, the HZ management representatives told a news conference in Zagreb on Tuesday. Already eight days after the beginning of the strike, the HZ management could have imposed the lock-out, or in other words, it could have carried out suspensions, but it did not want use such possibilities, as they could affect workers who were not on strike. The HZ management officials told the conference that by the end of this year the Croatian Parliament would receive the Government's report on the situation in the company along with short-term and long-term measures for restructuring. The HZ General Director Marijan Klaric said a Canadian firm, CANAC, had drawn up plans for the restructuring of the HZ. The CANAC proposed to the Croatian Government the so-called radical option that envisaged the lay-off of several thousand of workers and the reduction of railway lines' net, so that the need for the state financing of the HZ company could be lessened. Klaric vowed that "nothing will be done without trade unions." He said it was not true that massive lay-offs were being prepared in traffic and transporting staff, who constitute the largest part of the membership of Croatian Railway Workers' Trade Union that was now on strike. (hina) jn mš 102105 MET dec 96