Some 130 members of the cabin crews' union met in front of Croatia Airlines' administrative building on Friday after going on a four-day strike at 6 am due to which the national air carrier had to cancel one-third of today's flights.
Union vice president Hrvoje Humek said everyone was taking part in the strike except the 20 per cent of flight attendants legally obliged to work even during a strike.
He announced that union representatives would wait in front of the Zagreb County Court for a decision on the airline management's request to ban the strike. A hearing is expected to start at noon.
Croatia Airlines pilots came to support the flight attendants. The president of the pilots' union, Andre Sarinic, said that if legal conditions were met, pilots would stage within 48 hours a strike of solidarity with the cabin crews.
Sarinic said his union had a further problem in that the Croatia Airlines management declined to negotiate directly with pilots but asked for the formation of a joint negotiating committee of all unions active in the company.
The cabin crews' union says it has been forced to go on strike because of unsuccessful negotiations with the airline's management on conditions for signing a collective agreement since late last year.
The principal demands refer to the honouring of cabin crews' non-material rights which are regulated by law. To honour them, Croatia Airlines would have to employ 20 flight attendants or undergo restructuring by employing surplus administrative staff as flight attendants, which the management has been firmly refusing, according to the union.
The protesters are saying that the management has shown how it treats its staff by employing flight attendants from other companies during the strike, rather than paying its own staff.
The cabin crews' union has refuted the management's claim that the airline will lose US$ 1 million a day because of the strike, saying the company would not have losses in the millions if it was earning that much.
Since CEO Ivan Misetic has declared the strike illegal, thus prejudging the outcome of the court decision, and threatened to fire the protesters, the cabin crews' union maintains there are grounds to press charges against him, said Humek.
The union calls on the passengers whose flight schedules have been disrupted to show understanding, saying another aim of the strike is better in-flight safety and service.
