Several hundred workers of Croatian Telecom (HT) staged a protest rally in downtown Zagreb on Tuesday against the company's plan to lay off 450 workers, asking the management to scrap its plan and the government not to tolerate what they said was a blackmailer attitude of multinational companies.
The protest was organised by three trade unions active in HT. After protesting for a while in the city's Ban Jelacic Square, the protesters went to the German Embassy to hand to embassy staff a letter requesting that HT's majority owner, Deutsche Telekom, stop draining profit from Croatia and start investing in infrastructure and preserve jobs.
They said they would also rally outside the HT main offices to demand that the management abandon its plan to dismiss 450 workers and to become involved in social dialogue for the sake of protection of HT workers' interests.
The leader of the Independent Croatian Trade Unions, Kresimir Sever, said HT and DT were blackmailing the government by announcing that they would have to stop investments and continue laying workers off due to an extension of a six-percent tax on mobile services paid by the mobile telecom operators.
Sever also urged the government to protect the interests of the Croatian workers and economy.
