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30 October, 2006
Croatian ICEM affiliate, the Autonomous Trade Union of Energy, Chemical, and Non-Metal Workers’ (EKN) of Croatia, held its Sixth Congress on 18-19 October, and enthusiastically endorsed an agreement to form, with the Croatian Metal Workers’ Union, a Confederation of Metal and Chemical Workers’ Union of Croatia.
The EKN Congress gave a vote of confidence to Ivan Tomac, re-electing him President for the next term. Upon congratulating Tomac on re-election, ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs commended the union in forging the bond with the Metal Workers’ Union by stating, “We see this initiative as a major breakthrough in the process of uniting organized industry workers in your country and the whole region.”
EKN President Ivan Tomac
A special Inaugural Congress of the new confederation was held following the EKN Congress. The creation of this new industrial confederation of workers, now the largest in Croatia, was preceded by three years of negotiations and the signing of a Declaration of Intent in October 2005. Establishing the confederation, which now has its own statutory bodies and president, is seen as a way for the two unions to adjust their respective financial and staff policies with the intent to fully merge the organizations in two years’ time.
The new Confederation holds its doors open to all trade unions in the relevant industries who wish to join it and make it stronger. The ICEM welcomes this initiative as a unification breakthrough in bringing together a labour movement in a part of the world that has been plagued by so much division.
Besides attendance at the Congress by the ICEM and the European Mine, Chemical, and Energy Workers’ Federation (EMCEF), to which EKN is affiliated on the global and European levels, guests from fraternal unions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Slovakia, and Croatia were also in attendance.