prijava
MOSTAR, August 22 (FENA) - President of the Independent Aluminij Employees Union Romeo Biokšić said the plan to restart production at Mostar's Aluminij has apparently failed and announced new protest gathering in early September.
After an extraordinary Union meeting, Biokšić reminded that the plan to restart production on September 1 was supposed to start the smelter, but according to him, nothing has been done to make that happen.
“As from this perspective, there is no plan to restart production. We have information that as of September 1, the termination of the employment contract for Aluminij employees will be announced, and those employees will be declared redundant. Unless severance pay is provided to these people and their work experience is not bound, on September 3, Aluminij employees will protest in front of the HDZ headquarter, and on September 5, in front of the FBiH Government building,” said Biokšić.
Vice President of the Assembly of the Independent Aluminij Employees Union Stjepan Bevanda added that the plan to restart production was poorly done and did not offer any long-term solutions.
According to him, workers are requesting that they are provided with economic conditions so that Aluminij can continue operations on a long term, and not to find themselves in the same situation for three to four months.
The production facilities of Mostar's Aluminij were shut down on July 10 after the company was disconnected from the power grid due to accumulated debts.
The total debt of the company is around 400 million KM, of which 293 million KM is for electricity debt.
Aluminij employs around 900 workers, with the FBiH Government owning 44 percent of the share capital, small shareholders also holding 44 percent of the shares, while the Government of the Republic of Croatia holding the remaining 12 percent.
Following the shutdown of the production, the Crisis Council developed a plan for reconstruction and restart of production, but three days ago the Aluminij Management announced that they do not have money to implement the plan. It is unclear who should secure this money.
(FENA) A. B.
