T-Mobile Croatia workers strike over unfair plan to cut over 450 jobs

From: UNI Global Union

Croatian workers at T-Mobile Croatia are on strike in protest over the company’s plan to cut unionized employees without proper negotiation with the union. 

While the company plans to cut full-time, regular unionized workers, it has a rising number of temporary and student workers on its payroll. UNI Global Union is supporting the Croatian workers and their union, HST Croatian Telekom Workers (HST), in their demand that the company employs regular workers under decent conditions and respects social dialogue and collective bargaining rights.

More than 1,500 workers demonstrated in Zagreb yesterday, marching to the German Embassy where they delivered a letter asking the German government to intervene to end Deutsche Telekom’s double standard on labor rights and then ending with a rally at T-Mobile Croatia’s headquarters. 

Since Deutsche Telekom entered the market in Croatia in 2000, the workforce has been reduced from a peak of more than 11,000 down to fewer than 6,000. With the further demands by company management, employment levels could soon fall to under 5,000. 

CWA, along with German union ver.di, UNI Global Union and the International Trade Union Confederation have been calling on the Deutsche Telekom to respect worker and union rights globally in their We Expect Better campaign.

Read more here: http://files.cwa-union.org/tmobile/20120126-protest-hst.pdf

Watch a video about the strike here.