September 17 (SeeNews) - Slovenian home appliance maker Gorenje said it has reached a breakthrough in a pay dispute with trade unions and employee representatives, paving the way for production to resume as normal on Thursday morning.
The pay stand-off had disrupted production on Tuesday and Wednesday.
"President of the Gorenje Management Board, Mr. Franjo Bobinac, president of the SKEI PS Gorenje [trade union], Mr. Zan Zeba, and the representatives of the group of the employees have after the all day of discussions made an agreement, that in the case of starting the normal production tomorrow morning at 6 a.m., to employees in the production with the lowest wages the additional payment of 150 euro net (high cost of living money) will be pay out," Gorenje said in a filing with the Ljubljana Stock Exchange (LJSE) on Wednesday.
"They also agreed, that the Management Board, the representatives of the Union and the employees will continue with the discussion regards to the wages policy for the year 2009 and 2010," the statement said.
Gorenje officials were not available for comment on Thursday.
The home appliance maker said on Wednesday that a pick-up in orders has prompted a decision to revert to a 40-hour working week as of October 1 after shortening working hours earlier this year on sluggish demand.
Gorenje (www.gorenjegroup.com) turned to a net loss of 18 million euro ($26.5 million) in the first half of 2009 from a 8.151 million euro net profit a year earlier.
Shares of Gorenje, part of LJSE's broader SBI20 index, were trading down 0.61% at an average price of 11.42 euro by 0923 GMT on Thursday.
($=0.6784 euro)
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