ZAGREB, March 21, 2019 – Workers at the Uljanik shipyard in the northern coastal town of Pula once again went on strike on Thursday, welding the gates at two of three entrances to the dock in an effort to compel the government to urgently decide on the future of the shipyard and its workers.
“We are on strike again as of today as we did not get any positive information from the government or Uljanik’s management,” the chairman of the strike committee, Boris Cerovac, said.
He reiterated that workers demand that the government adopt the restructuring plan or obtain a loan to pay workers their wages which they haven’t received for the past seven months. “Let the government make its decision as soon as possible. We don’t have any more time to wait. We want an urgent decision today. We don’t want ships to be pulled out of Pula, we want to finish them here. We started them and we want to finish them,” Cerovac said.
“It is due to the state, that is, the government’s negligence that we are losing a ship and paying unnecessary penalties and all that could have been avoided had there been a timely reaction. The gates to Uljanik will be blocked until further notice, until such time that a solution for the shipyard is found,” he said, adding that they would not allow subcontractors working on a cruise ship to enter the shipyard either.
Cerovac added that the strike committee had informed the management of their demands and that they expected the strategic partner, Tomislav Debeljak, to help and to state his opinion on the most recent development.
“We are not planning to go to Zagreb yet, even though we are considering that option…We are waiting for a response from our colleagues at the 3. Maj shipyard and call on them to join us in showing our dissatisfaction together,” he concluded.
According to Cerovac there are currently 2,740 workers in the Uljanik Group and 1,800 have left the Pula and Rijeka shipyards so far.
A union official in the 3. Maj shipyard said on Thursday that waiting for a solution to the fate of Rijeka’s ailing dock had become extremely hard for workers and told those in charge to finally make a decision and end the months-long agony.
Speaking to the press in Rijeka, Juraj Šoljić said workers had been waiting for a solution for seven months and asked the government and the ruling coalition to show responsibility toward them. Workers are entitled to dignity and have been brought into the current situation because of the state’s inactivity, he added.
Asked about a hearing on March 28 when the Rijeka Commercial Court is due to decide whether the dock will file for bankruptcy, Šoljić said he could not understand why bankruptcy might be postponed again.
Unionist Veljko Todorović called out the prosecutor’s office for the delays and said managements were mainly responsible for the current situation, not just the state. “We expect some kind of salary, from bankruptcy, from liquidation, from whatever. Make a decision if you can,” he said, adding that 3. Maj workers wanted to work and had asked only for material so they could finish the ships under construction. He asked Finance Minister Zdravko Marić why he had issued guarantees for non-existent ships.
Unionist Slađan Pejić told President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović that she could come to 3. Maj and visit the workers, and not just when she was a ship’s godmother. “We all know the decision on whether we file for bankruptcy will be made by Prime Minister Plenković,” said unionist Predrag Knežević. “They devastated everything. They systematically and deliberately destroyed us,” he said, accusing the management of the Uljanik Group, of which 3. Maj is a part of, and “all the governments,” whose responsibility it was to have overseen everything.
More news about the shipyards can be found in the Business section.
