About one hundred workers of the privately-owned Industrogradnja construction company on Wednesday staged a protest rally in front of the company's headquarters inn Zagreb demanding the payment of their outstanding salaries and severance packages in the amount estimated between three and five million kuna.
The protestors also accused the current management of ruining Industrogradnja, which they said used to be a flagship company in the Croatian construction sector.
The Croatian Construction Workers' Trade Union leader, Ivan Kovacevic, said the management had laid off 2,100 workers in the last five years, whereby increasing the value of its real estate.
The SSSH trade union federation's leader, Mladen Novosel, said that Industrogradnja workers as well as many other workers in the country were victims of the Companies Law which he said enabled the divestiture of property of one company into a separately established company, retaining workers in the company without property. Eventually such companies go bankrupt and workers cannot obtain their outstanding salaries and severance packages, the unionist said adding that such legislation had not been changed for 17 years due to the interest of power-mongers.
