Secretary General of the Independent Union of Science and Higher Education Vilim Ribić commented live on N1 Studio about the agreement between the Government and the public and state service unions, which was signed on Tuesday.
He says that he was not personally present at the signing of the agreement because the Grand Council of the trade union unanimously decided that the offer was not acceptable and that the agreement should not have been signed. “That’s why I have nothing to look for and magnify the celebration there. Our biggest problem is next year. Some progress was made this year, but we have a ten percent increase in wages, and inflation is around 12.8 percent. Only now, towards the end of the year, have we come close to the inflation rate. All this time before that, we did not have adequate monitoring of price growth, which means that the Government paid salaries in a lower value. The state budget benefited, but our members were harmed,” he said.
“We have a predicted salary increase of two percent and negotiations only in the ninth month, and inflation will certainly be higher by then. The time period in which inflation occurred, that is, from the beginning to the end of the year, must be observed. The Grand Council of the trade union recognized this as a problem and made a decision not to sign something like that,” he said.
He referred to the comments of other trade unionists, who say that “a sparrow in the hand is better than a dove on a branch”. “If you can catch a pigeon, try to do it. It should be known that some of our members believed that the Government, in the event that the agreement is not signed, will not pay the increase that was announced and agreed upon. What is the probability that the Prime Minister will say that he will not pay it because of revenge? Such a probability is equal to zero. That would be political suicide,” he said.
“Plenković didn’t outplay us, but part of the members mistakenly believed that they would be left without a raise. If the Government independently makes a decision, then it can independently change it. We estimated that it is impossible to do this in the conditions of inflation,” he said.
As he states, there was no risk in not signing that agreement. “People would definitely get that raise. They were not treated well, nor did they talk enough. “If we had met and met, we would all have understood that we cannot wait so long for new negotiations,” he said.
“Unions of civil servants are not really unions, they are organizations that pretend to do union work. You can see that they sign everything and that the Government meets them for many things. The government favors them and thereby creates a rift between public and state unions. I would say that the unions wished they did not have to organize a strike, because it is very difficult to organize it in public services. A doctor can’t go on strike if he has to perform surgeries, and the union leaders know that. That is why these people do not want to take risks and are not sure that their strike will succeed,” he said.
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