ZAGREB, 30 April 2022 - Social Democratic Party (SDP) leader Peđa Grbin on Saturday distributed carnations and socialised with citizens in Pula ahead of International Workers' Day, noting that the incumbent government was not willing to launch a comprehensive reform of the Labour Act announced over six months ago.
"According to recent EU statistics, Croatia is close to the bottom of the EU ranking in terms of employment and that is what we need to talk about, not just when we observe International Workers' Day but throughout the year," Grbin said, recalling that a comprehensive reform of the labour law was announced more than half a year ago but that it was not happening.
"This government is not willing to do it and lacks the capacity. It has changed the minister who should be in charge of the reform, a new one has been appointed who knows nothing about work and workers, and the problems are staying," he said, adding that data for February showed that regardless of a rise in absolute figures, the real value of wages had dropped over the past year.
"We should all focus on maintaining the value of income, of preserving the value of wages and pensions as well as on dealing with problems such as compensation for overtime work, work on Sundays and holidays and higher wages," Grbin said, adding that the reality was such that workers were still exploited.
He also called for amending the Pension Act to ensure adequate indexation of pensions to prevent their losing in value due to growing inflation.
