The Croatian Railways (HŽ-Hrvatske željeznice) presented today a model according to which all workers, that will be declared redundant due to the reorganization of the company, will be provided for. Besides receiving severance pay at the moment of being discharged, those workers will also receive the possibility of choosing between additional wages throughout the period of the next three years or undergoing re-qualification for being re-hired in one of the new five HŽ companies.
The six HŽ unions signed in May, 2006 a contract for the foundation of a Railway Fund based on a German model, which would secure re-qualification for railway workers, giving them the opportunity of being offered a new job within a period of three years. The job would include one of the five new companies which will be founded in January 2007, after the reorganization of HŽ. Only if the employee would not fulfill the accepted commitments or if, within that time, there would be no new job for him available, he would be discharged.
The new Railway Fund will make sure that the new five HŽ companies will search for employees, first of all, within the Fund and only later on outside of it. Those employees who reckon that it will be more profitable for them to accept only the severance pay will be able to do so, conclude the unionist.
The Minister of the Sea, Tourism, Transport and Development Božidar Kalmeta stated that he supported the implementation of that model since the state budget for the year 2007 was planning an additional amount of HRK 105 million for all the redundant HŽ workers. He also added that, before the implementation, the HŽ model had to be presented to the Socio-Economic Council.
The whole process of reorganizing the HŽ was initiated in 1998 which included also the dismissal of 8947 workers. As many as 5798 of the discharged employees left by accepting the severance pay. Currently the previews indicate the by the year 2010 toady’s number of 14000 employees will be reduced by an additional 1700.
The unions point out that the Fund will be of great use to all those who remain within the railway system, but that it is also very cost effective for the state budget compared to securing at least HRK 30000 of severance pay for each employee.