Željko Stipić

Željko Stipić was born in 1960 in Vinkovci, Croatia. A secondary school teacher of Croatian language and literature for many years, he is also a long-time trade union activist. From 1986 to 2017 he taught at Vrbovec Secondary School, and in 1996 he became active in the trade union movement. From 1997 to 2007 he headed the Federation of School Unions (Savez školskih sindikata), a higher-level union association, and since 2004 he has led the Preporod School Union (Školski sindikat Preporod). He considers his greatest achievements in union work to be the merger of two education unions (2007), the adoption of the Act on the Representativeness of Employers’ Associations and Trade Unions (2014), leading the 2014 referendum initiative that halted the outsourcing of services in the public sector, and his contribution to negotiations on the Basic Collective Agreement for Officials and Employees in Public Services (2017 and 2022). He has published articles on literary criticism and literary history in the journals Quorum, Vijenac, and Marulić, and pieces on education and trade union issues in Školske novine and in Croatian dailies including Vjesnik, Večernji list, Jutarnji list, Slobodna Dalmacija, and Novi list. He has edited several books and secondary school textbooks.