The crisis in the Uljanik shipyard in Pula, which is unable to pay the July salaries for about 4.500 employees in its "skever" and in the Rijeka shipyard "3. maj" (which a few years ago was "bought" with Croatian state money, that is, through which it was recapitalized with state money in a disguised subsidy operation), has a number of classic characteristics of the financial collapse of a large company, but also several specifics that deserve the attention of the Serbian public as well .
First of all, we should highlight the fact that "Uljanik" was privatized according to the model of "worker shareholding" (essentially for free, with the alleged deduction of wages and pensions), so employees (and former employees) in this company have about 46 percent of the shares in ownership. The state, through its agencies and funds, has kept a little over 20 percent of the shares, and the rest is in the hands of private investors, among which the largest is the Adria Group with a 12 percent share.
The state, although as the second most important shareholder in Uljanik's company, does not even have its own representative in the Supervisory Board of this economic giant - it tried so hard in advance to remove the responsibility for the future funding of shipbuilding in Croatia, which is incompatible with the entry of this country into the EU. state role in the economic market. Nevertheless, Plenković's Government of Croatia actually continued the practice of helping shipbuilders since the beginning of the transition at the end of the last century (it is estimated that more than four billion euros were poured into this branch from the budget or loans of former state banks) through the well-known "state guarantees" for loans. which commercial banks granted to Pula shipbuilders - the last one was last year's injection of 96 million euros. However, even with these loans, last year Uljanik failed to deliver six vessels out of seven contracted, and this year none of the eight vessels contracted at prices lower than the expected costs for their construction.
In such a situation, the workers-owners of Uljanik demand the resignation of the management of the company - the management they just elected themselves at the assembly of their company, and they also demand salvation from the Government of Croatia, according to "Agrokor's" special law. So, this case, unfortunately, shows that the "self-management" of workers as co-owners in the company cannot survive in a market-oriented and globalized environment (shipbuilding lives on world orders in small countries), while the domicile state does not have sufficient capital and civic trust. , as in South Korea, so that with 20 billion dollars, as that country did, to save and recover its three shipyards (interestingly, they are called Daevu, Hyundai and Samsung), which, by the way, are today the largest in the world. However, it is an old story about the combination of the state and business conglomerates (Italian-Asian corporatism) with which Dobrica Ćosić and other "Orthodox reformers" got carried away in Serbia 20 years ago.
The problem with worker shareholding is always the same - there is an insurmountable internal "conflict of interest" between employees and owners, as well as the problem of homogenization of "ownership will" among workers. That is why the workers turn very quickly to the centers of political power and expect help from them. Their main goal is to keep their jobs, not to have their small parts of the owner's capital reject a higher return. That is why the "bankruptcy solution" is rejected a priori, which in the case of Croatian shipbuilding, from a purely economic point of view, would be the most logical. Croatia, however, cannot decide to stop training shipbuilders and sea captains even though it no longer has any serious and large maritime companies. And that education costs taxpayers a lot.
Another specific feature, which is not as interesting and exclusive as "worker shareholding", is that the workers of Uljanik go to protest "under the windows" of the Croatian government, even though it has no right to provide them with subsidies from the budget or from the banks, and even though it supposedly will not spend money taxpayers not even to save Agrokor, but the creditors will provide self-cutting, on the advice of professional advisers (which, it seems, will be paid for by the Government). As the Croats say - we'll see!
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