The unionists told a news conference that the contract on the acquisition of INA's daughter company by the Russian oil company did not contain a social clause protecting workers from dismissal.
The new owner of Crobenz refuses to sign a collective agreement and is signing individual employment contracts with the workers, guaranteeing them only minimum pay, said the leader of the oil sector workers' trade union, Bozo Mikus.
The union insists on acquainting workers with the part of the sales contract signed by MOL/INA and Lukoil Croatia, which refers to employees.
The trade union has been against the sale of Crobenz since the very start of the process of its sale.
INA was bound to sell Crobenz under a decision of the Competition Agency of June 9, 2009, which approved the acquisition of operational control of INA by the Hungarian oil company MOL provided that INA sells its stake in Crobenz. The decision on the sale was enacted this July in line with the Agency's demand that concentration of INA and MOL on the Croatian petroleum products' market should be lessened.
With Crobenz's 14 filling stations, Lukoil has a total of 35 filling stations in Croatia.
The union fears that "murky dealings" surrounded the sale as it learned from the media that Crobenz had been sold at the price of HRK 20 million, while the modernisation of one filling station cost HRK 30 million.
(EUR 1 = HRK 7.27)