Unions up in arms over salary cuts in civil service

This decision resembles a decision adopted in July 2012 when teachers' salaries were cut by 3, 5, 7 or 9 per cent, which then caused dissatisfaction, whereas today's cut has caused bitterness amongst education workers, Stipic said.

The government's explanation that teachers' salaries were going up when in fact they are being reduced can only be met with bitterness, Stipic's letter says.

The civil servants' union SDLSN announced that they would take the matter of the wage reduction to court as the government's decision was nothing short of a "rape" of Croatia's legal order.

The union announced that it would refer the government's decision to the Constitutional Court to assess the decision's constitutionality.

The union further pointed out that when regulations were being amended, the government was obliged to seek the opinion of unions amongst else, which in this case was done less than half an hour before the government adopted its decision and so the unions consider that they have been short-changed with regard to the regulation on wage scales in the civil service.

The police union said today that the government had the power to reduce wage scales but that it had never done so without first discussing such an option with partners or that it had ever announced such a move in the media. As such, the union assessed the decision as unilateral and without precedence in Croatian history.

The union claims that although the reduction referred to all civil servants, it would not have the same impact on everyone and would mostly negatively affect those with the lowest salaries.

The police union considers that the government has backed away from all its promises that it would not touch civil servant salaries. The only promise they haven't broken is that they would not fire anyone, but the question is when this promise too will be broken, the police union said.