The government and the majority of public sector unions on Friday agreed on virtually the entire draft of the new Basic Collective Agreement (TKU) for public servants and the only matter left to discuss on Tuesday is travel allowances, a press conference was told in the Cabinet building after the day's round of negotiations.
Seven unions are ready to sign the wage agreement, temporarily forfeiting Christmas bonuses and holiday grants and accepting reduced award allowances, per diems and travel allowances. Four unions from the MHS union federation that organised a one-day strike on Thursday continued to reject the new agreement.
The seven conceding unions agreed to give the government until Tuesday to come up with adjustments relating to travel allowance. The unions insist that before they sign the TKU, the problem of travel allowances should be settled as a great number of employees would be faced with financial problems if they were compelled to pay fares in advance.
If these adjustments are satisfactory the unions will be prepared to sign the new TKU even though this means forfeiting some rights. We are aware of the situation in the country and we want to preserve the TKU which if lost would mean that all employees in the public service are at a loss, the president of the Croatian Doctors' Union Ivica Babic said.
The Minister of Labour and the Pension System, Mirando Mrsic, recalled that negotiations had fallen through last summer as the four unions from the MHS federation rejected the negotiations. We regret that these unions have been stalling negotiations simply to have Christmas bonuses paid out. The government will take all the legal actions at its disposal to achieve budget austerity measures, he said.
According to legislation, the new TKU will be valid even without the signature of the four dissatisfied unions. The new TKU could be signed at the next round of negotiations scheduled for December 4.
