Strike of Civil Servants

AIM Zagreb, December 12, 2000

A few months ago Slavko Linic announced a series of legal regulations which would "start a draught in public services". This deputy prime minister, however, did not live to see so far the mechanism which would de facto and de jure turn state officials into more obedient strongholds of Croatian bureaucracy, but just the contrary happened in the end of last week when the white collars which were supposed to undergo a collective lobotomy rose and in the biggest strike in this year announced a draught which might cause sinus trouble of somebody else. Between 40 and 45 per cent of the total of 250 thousand clerks started in this way a political conflict with Croatian government just because of the raise of their salary base of up to 8.5 per cent, Christmas bonus of 1000 kunas, and children's presents of 400 kunas... This would require an additional billion and 200 million in the state budget which Ivica Racan cannot expect to get from Santa Clause even in his wildest dreams.

And it is a very serious sight when more than 100 thousand different employees in public and state services stop working. A part of elementary school teachers, and majority of teachers in secondary schools, professors at the university, failed to appear in front of their pupils and students that day. Physicians in out-patient clinics and hospitals saw only emergency cases and performed just surgeries that could not be postponed. Curators shut the doors of their museums, and numberless of those almost inconspicuous window clerks simply took a day off. Professional soldiers do not have the right to strike, so according to what the newspapers wrote, "they took their time cleaning and repairing their arms"! Traffic policemen rigidly punished all offenders, even pedestrians at road crossings, and customs officials spent half of the day exerting severe control at all border crossings. One could go on forever listing similar examples.

However, the Croatian government did not let itself be confused, and the ministers did not give in at all. The prime minister did announce a correction of salaries in public services to correspond to those in public enterprises in the last three months of this year, but that was expected anyway. This amounted to another 8.5 per cent, or as the coordinator of seven trade unions of public services and civil servants Vilim Ribic said "two per diem for two days of the strike". The second day of the strike is yet to happen on Friday, December 15, because the first did not bear fruit... On the next occasion, all things considered, one day might go on for ever, since trade union leaders are announcing a strike until demands are met. Let us try to imagine all the already mentioned symptoms but lasting for much longer. Croatian ministers must have very good nerves because they would not be blackmailed and because the possibility of a catastrophe did not make them panic.

It is difficult to estimate at the moment which of the conflicting parties, speaking in basketball terms, has a longer bench. Ivica Racan may pretend he is resolute as much as he wants, but if he does not find a crack in the trade union bulwark, these strikers could literally paralise the country and it would be much more easier for them to achieve that than it is for railway workers or peasants. On the other hand, the government does not have those 1.2 billion kunas in some mislaid Christmas stocking, although Ribic claims that by amending the collective contract Racan could find a solution. Why does not the prime minister do it then, or at least take it into consideration? Because it is after all an unfeasible idea or because he is defiant? Ribic says that ministers lack benevolence, that they lack "social and democratic culture", and Racan's words about tens of thousand of other citizens who are in an even worse situation, are characterised by the trade union coordinator as simple and déjà vu cheap demagogy...

And while negotiations, according to Hina news agency claims, "continue until further notice", it is interesting to see what instruments the government is using. First, at the time of the experimental one-day strike, Ivica Racan met Stipe Mesic, president of the state. Mesic did not comment for the journalists on the opinions they had exchanged, but Racan did, and although he tried to sound as an optimist who had allegedly the support of the head of the state in his hands, consciously or not, the prime minister uttered a sentence which media interpreted as latent discontent. Ivica Racan quite ambiguously declared that “the President should not support these strikers, because someone should also support those tens of thousands unemployed”, and so on, as the already quoted Vilim Ribic. Had Stipe Mesic perhaps already sided with the strikers or was everything intended to be in the conditional, Ivica Racan did not say.

Due to the rarely sharp statement of the prime minister on the eve of the one-day strike, some of the employees of the assembly and the government who supported the strikers, in the course of the working hours started taking off the badges which read “I am on strike” The head magistrate in Zagreb Ana Krleza Jurisic announced to her employees the possibility that they be sacked in case they went on strike, so it was hardly possible to see any badges in that court. The other deputy of prime minister Goran Granic said that the strike was irrational and promised that the strikers would get their pay for this one day, but for the next one they certainly would not. “It is even possible that we will break the collective contracts and introduce working obligation”, declared Granic and demonstrated that the government was prepared to strain the situation to the end. Finally, in expectation of the general strike Ivica Racan announced – reduction of salaries for those who had rebelled in order to get a raise!

Let us say in the end that this time Ivica Racan is essentially right, but the problem is giving it the legal form. Regardless of the repulsive stand of Slavko Linic from the beginning of this story and not exactly excessively generous social policy of the government, it is difficult to support those who intend to block the life in the country because of holiday presents, while numerous people in that same country are literally hungry. But, it is the duty of the prime minister to meet their demands as long as the collective contract is in force that was signed with public servants in April by the minister of finance Mato Crkvenac. At the time he linked the salaries in public services with those in public enterprises, and then calmly watched the latter raising their salaries and then in the beginning of autumn tried to lower them to the level of last year! With this curious manoeuvre Crkvenac managed to confuse only himself, which would not have done much harm if his deed had not made the prime minister and other several million tax payers despair

Igor Lasic

(AIM)