The Union insists that they consider the decision to ban the Croatia Airlines strike unlawful and improper, claiming that they will use all the legal means to see it overturned.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 10th of August, 2018, on Friday, Croatia Airlines’ ORCA Union rejected the explanation of the Zagreb County Court that the trade union didn’t negotiate in good faith and have deemed it to be unacceptable because they claim to have gone through all the procedures established by law, repeatedly negotiated with Croatia Airlines, and therefore considered they had fulfilled all the conditions for the strike to be legal.
On Thursday, the Zagreb County Court decided to ban the now twice threatened Croatia Airlines (CA) strike, arguing that the defendant, ORCA, did not negotiate in good faith for the purpose of concluding a new collective bargaining agreement and didn’t want to resolve the dispute properly in a calm and peaceful manner. This, they claim, was evidenced by the fact that the ORCA Union resigned from further negotiations after its collective bargaining proposal failed to be accepted, according to the court’s explanation.
“The reasoning of the court that ORCA didn’t negotiate in good faith is unacceptable because we’ve passed all the procedures established by law as we have discussed and negotiated several times over a long period of time with the Croatia Airlines administration, and in that sense, we believe we’ve met all of the preconditiones for the strike to be lawful,” read the statement.
ORCA is also of the belief that the court’s view that their failure to attend meetings back in January 2018 has been taken completely out of context, because the trade union had negotiated before and after those terms, and in that sense, their lack of presence during those meetings ”cannot be presumed to mean that the entire proceeding was carried out in bad faith,” said the ORCA Union in a statement in which the chronology of the negotiations with Croatia Airlines’ management was presented, all of it aimed at wanting to sign a collective agreement.
The aforementioned Union also made sure to point out that they consider the court’s decision to be illegal and improper, and they have warned that they will use all the legal measures at their disposal to overturn it.
ORCA has claimed that such a decision contains a general danger which could lead to a complete suspension of trade union activity in the Republic of Croatia because in the future, every employer could simply claim that the union has entered into negotiations in bad faith during collective bargaining, meaning that any such strike in the future could also be in equal danger of being prevented.
Because of all of the above mentioned factors, the ORCA Union claims it intends to use all legal remedies, both in Croatia and abroad, to overturn the decision of the court. Primarily included in the aforementioned legal measures ORCA is threatening to use against the decision is the all powerful and formidable European Court of Human Rights.
