The Civil Servants Union representing 56,000 employees of the state administration, tax authority, customs, police, army and judicial system on Monday accepted the government’s proposal to reduce their base salary by six per cent from next month on the condition that all other rights secured in the Collective Agreement remain the same.

By doing so, Civil servants Union managed to secure the most important goal at this point – maintaining jobs, whilst public sector unions covering over 180,000 employees in education, science, healthcare, culture and social security decided to ‘’gamble’’. They refused to accept the Government’s offer to ‘’freeze’’ their base salary to last year’s level which could result in the unilateral termination of their collective agreements. Deputy Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor yesterday did not want to expressly confirm these developments but Finance Minister, Ivan Šuker, clearly stated that the Government’s objective is unchanged as far as reducing salary expenditure is concerned – saving 1.4 billion kuna. Since the agreement reached with civil servants union will ‘’only’’ reduce state expenditure by 300 million kuna, it is clear that the difference needs to be found in the salaries of employees in public services.
(AmCham)