The debate was organised on the occasion of Day of Struggle for the Rights of Workers in the Trade Sector. In attendance were representatives of trade unions, employers and state institutions.
Trade is the sector with the highest number of workers in Croatia (216,000), accounting for the highest share in GDP (11%), but it remains governed by the outdated Trade Act from 1996 and without a development strategy, SSSH president Ana Knezevic said.
About 40,000 sale clerks work on Sundays, including 15,000 mothers of pre-school children, when kindergartens are closed, she said.
Of all transition countries, Croatia is the worst in terms of honouring its national holidays, so national holidays do not exist for our sale clerks, except for Easter, Christmas and New Year's Day, said Knezevic.
In 2005, workers in the trade sector were not paid for a total of 53.5 million hours, which would correspond to the employment of 25,000 new workers, earning their employers 1.4 billion kuna, said Dragica Miseljic, president of the Croatian Union of Trade Workers.
(EUR1 = 7.4 kuna)