Five trade union federations which have stated that they have collected a total of 813,016 signatures for the petition to get a referendum against the draft amendments to the Labour Act (ZOR) proposed by the government, on Thursday urged the cabinet of Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor to treat this figure as if the referendum were already conducted successfully.
Union leaders told a news conference in Zagreb that 813,016 signatures were 19.9 percent of the Croatian electorate.
The five trade union federations at midnight 23 June finished collecting signatures for the referendum. In order to make their request for a referendum valid, the unions had to collect at least 449,506 signatures (10 percent of the electorate) in the period from June 9 to 23.
"Trade unions ask the government to acknowledge and treat the collected signatures as a successfully conducted referendum," unionist Ozren Matijasevic said,
Thy also call on the government to sign an agreement with trade unions on taking over the obligation to immediately withdraw from the parliamentary procedure the draft amendments it sponsored regarding the ZOR, he said.
They also ask the government to undertake not to propose changes to the ZOR without prior agreement from trade unions.
If the government fails to meet the above-mentioned requirements, the trade union federations will launch a regular procedure for calling the referendum, Matijasevic said.
