HPT WORKERS TO GO ON STRIKE ON FEBRUARY 13

ZAGREB, Jan 25 (Hina) - The Croatian Post and Telecommunication (HPT) Workers' Union, the Coordination of Workers' Unions in the HPT and the State HPT Workers' Union on Thursday announced that a one-day strike of HPT workers would take place on February 13. The strike would be organised in all HPT post and telecommunication centres in Croatia which have 18,700 workers. The strike was the result of the failure to sign the text of the HPT Branch Collective Agreement of December 28, 1995, since the Government had not given authority for its representative to sign the agreement, representatives of the three unions told a press conference in Zagreb today. Recalling the chronology of the events concerning the Branch Collective Agreement, the President of the Croatian Post and Telecommunication Workers' Union, Jadranka Dumbovic, said that the signing of the agreement had been postponed three times in one month because the Government representatives had not shown up. Representatives of the three unions had held talks with Transport and Communications Minister Ivica Mudrinic on January 10, 1996, who promised that the problem of signing the agreement would be solved the next day, at a session of the HPT Managing Board. The unions had still not received any answer from Minister Mudrinic, Dumbovic said. The unions claim that the text of the Agreement does not contain any contentious elements since they want to have a 40-hour work week as other public companies which have signed collective agreements. The unions also demand that their salaries be in line with the Government Decision on Salary Policy for 1996. According to some data, the salaries in the HPT in December 1995 were bellow the proscribed level. This meant the money intended for the salaries had gone elsewhere, the unions' representatives said, stressing that among nine public companies, the HPT had had highest salaries in 1994, while in the last year it had fallen to the seventh place. (hina) rm 251422 MET jan 96