ZAGREB, March 22, 2019 – The situation at the ailing Uljanik shipbuilding group from Pula, whose workers on Thursday went on strike again, was calm on Friday, and the striking committee decided to send letters to the prime minister, the president and the parliament speaker and to the owners of a dredger and a polar discovery cruise ship that are being built at Uljanik, in yet another attempt to make the government finally make a decision on the shipyard’s future.
“We have asked the prime minister to urgently hold a government conference call to make a decision on Uljanik. We have called on President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović… to visit Uljanik and see for herself the workers’ agony and on the parliament speaker to hold a parliamentary discussion on Uljanik and seek support for the shipyard,” the head of the striking committee, Boris Cerovac, said.
He added that the striking committee had also written to Jan De Nul, owner of a dredger that was being built in the shipyard, to give up on its plan to take the vessel and have it completed somewhere else.
“We cannot accept that and believe that Uljanik workers are capable of completing the ship. It is a highly sophisticated vessel, the world’s biggest dredger, and we are willing to complete it as soon as the government makes a decision that will be positive for us. We have also written to the Scenic group, owner of the polar discovery cruise ship, asking for patience. We are behind deadlines but workers cannot work if they are hungry,” he said.
Cerovac stressed that decision-making on the shipyard’s fate was taking too long, that workers were physically and mentally exhausted and they had lost dignity.
Union representatives said on Thursday that workers demanded that the government adopt a restructuring plan for Uljanik or obtain a loan to pay workers their wages which they haven’t received for the past seven months.
More news on Uljanik can be found in the Business section.
