Around 300 workers of Dina Petrokemija, a polyethylene producer which is part of Dioki Grupa, rallied outside the company's production units in Omisalj on the northern Adriatic island of Krk, to protest against the company's financial situation and the nonpayment of their salaries.

They had announced that later today they would abandon the plant and leave dangerous and explosive substances in it unattended until at least one of their six unpaid salaries was paid.

During the rally, the workers' trade union representatives attended a meeting in the company's offices with representatives of the national agency for protection and rescue operations, the county and municipal centres for protection and rescue operations and the company management.

The workers' representative at the talks, Predrag Mihaljevic, said the union's estimates had turned out to be right, namely that there was no legal solution for a private company in case its workers left it unattended.

Mihaljevic told the protesters that the meeting heard that nobody could ensure money for the workers' salaries, but that the workers also could not be forced to return to work, adding that participants in the meeting appealed for the workers' morality, a statement that was met with boos from the protesting crowd.

Mihaljevic said Dina Petrokemija should have been privatised like the Kutina-based Petrokemija, namely that the state should have retained a majority interest in it in order to be able to intervene when necessary.

He said that the ministers of finance and labour and the pension system, Slavko Linic and Mirando Mrsic, had told him in a telephone conversation that the problems of Dina Petrokemija workers would be solved by the end of the week.

It has been announced that the state-owned power supply company HEP should enter Dina Petrokemija's ownership structure as a creditor and that five overdue salaries should be paid by the end of the week, said Mihaljevic.

Dina Petrokemija's major creditors have unblocked its bank account, but it has been blocked by Siemens Croatia, Mihaljevic said, adding that representatives of Dina's management will be allowed to enter the company premises so that they can continue negotiations with Siemens.

Another representative of Dina Petrokemija's workers, Alfredo Davanzo, said that some of the workers would remain in the plant until the end of the week, stressing that care for state interests, tourism and other citizens seemed to depend on Dina workers' sense of morality and that they had to show that they were more responsible than politicians and ministers.

After the protest, the workers dispersed peacefully.