ZAGREB, April 19, 2019 – Unionists in the Uljanik shipyard said in Pula on Friday the situation was alarming and disastrous, and that the government was responsible due to its inaction.
“Recently… there has been less and less talk about Uljanik, where the situation is harder by the day. The situation has been alarming for a long time, but what has been happening to us over the past month is disastrous. Someone should be held accountable for this situation,” unionist Boric Cerovac told the press, adding that “politicians are responsible, whether at local or national level, everyone should be called out.”
He once again invited Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and his ministers to come to Uljanik and to the 3. Maj shipyard in Rijeka, and tell workers what they actually wanted regarding Uljanik and shipbuilding because “only they can resolve this.”
“The government is toying with workers’ fate, saying they are looking for rescue but doing nothing. They mention the Chinese, Norwegians, Africans, Americans, but there’s no solution. With each new day, workers are in bigger problems because the wages aren’t coming,” Cerovac said.
They have been working without pay for eight months now and the delays of bankruptcy proceedings are only delaying the end of this agony, he added.
Cerovac said his Adriatic Union had been warning about the problems and the government’s idleness, and that it demanded the payment of wages or interim financing.
“That hasn’t happened and I don’t know what else we unions can do after months of efforts, talks and the economy minister’s promises that the wages will be paid… We can no longer believe the government and the minister? Evidently not.”
Cerovac said the 150 workers of the Uljanik Group’s security, accounting, legal and personnel departments today decided to leave the group, and that without them it could not function.
As for a bankruptcy hearing for the Uljanik dock at the Commercial Court in Pazin, he said: “These are spins to buy time, to do the European elections… There’s no intention for something positive to happen. The majority was for bankruptcy if no other solution was found. The decision on bankruptcy is made by a judge. Everyone can say they want bankruptcy, but if the information comes from politicians, it won’t happen.”
Another unionist, Đino Šverko, said the “key of the rescue” is in Plenković’s hands and that Uljanik needed interim financing for workers to survive. The government can agree with potential partners after that, he added.
Supervisory Board member Samir Hadžić said only the government was responsible for the current state of affairs and that its inaction was costing taxpayers one million kuna a day.
Economy Minister Darko Horvat said on Thursday that executives of the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation would visit Uljanik Group on 30 April and 1 May to explore possibilities for cooperation and that after that they would hold meetings with the Croatia side, however, Horvat declined to speculate the outcome of the Chinese visit to Pula and Rijeka.
More Uljanik news can be found in the Business section.
