Unions of public sector employees on Friday rejected the government proposal to renounce this year's Christmas bonuses, holiday cash grants and presents for children on account of the economic crisis.
Since the unions find the proposal unacceptable, negotiations should begin to change the basic collective agreement for public sector employees, the unions said in their written response to the government.
Government employees' unions will send their response to the government on Monday, and leaders of those unions have announced that their response will also be negative.
At a meeting of March 25, Finance Minister Ivan Suker proposed that the unions renounce this year's Christmas bonuses, holiday cash grants and presents for children, whereby the government would save 640 million kuna in the budget.
Suker said then he would put forward the same proposal to the unions in the state-owned companies and in those owned by the Croatian Privatisation Fund.
The government earmarks 30 billion kuna for salaries of about 240,000 public and government sector employees, plus 3.9 billion kuna in various allowances, according to Suker.
