Sisak, located about 60 kilometres southeast of Zagreb, was once a symbol of Croatian industry, and union leaders called on the government to save the little industry that was left in the country.
The leader of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions, Mladen Novosel, urged the government to merge agriculture and industry in order to create jobs, ensure GDP growth, get the country of the crisis and make it possible for people to live their lives decently from their own work. He told the government and the opposition that the workers had had enough of their lies and their quarrelling and wrangling, and stressed that production at the Sisak oil refinery and the Kutina-based fertiliser company Petrokemija must be preserved.
The head of the Independent Croatian Trade Unions, Kresimir Sever, said that jobs and the remaining industry had to be defended and the trampling of workers' rights and non-payment of their wages had to stop.
"We're holding this rally in Sisak where tens of thousands of workers once worked and now it's a wasteland. The situation is equally difficult throughout the country, but we won't give up. We're continuing our struggle for our dignity and for a better tomorrow, because otherwise we won't have a future," Sever said.
Sever called on citizens to turn their backs on the government and urged the government to step down and let competent people take their place. He told the future government that citizens would not wait for four years for it show its results.
Vilim Ribic, head of the Matica association of health and education sector unions, said that the present bad situation was the result of bad policies pursued both by this and all the previous governments, while the leader of the Croatian Association of Workers' Unions, Ozren Matijasevic, called on citizens to take to the streets and to replace the government at an early election rather than wait for the end of its term.
The head of another association of workers' unions, Damir Jakus, said that the government was not socially sensitive and that Croatia was run by big corporations that were destroying Croatian production so that they could sell their own products.
The protest rally lasted nearly two hours and passed without incident.