Doctors in Slovenia began a 24-hour strike on Thursday demanding a 40 percent wage hike.

The medical FIDES union has called for a gradual increase in doctors’ salaries to a level that would be triple the eurozone country’s average net salary — currently around 1,000 euros ($1,090).

Health Minister Milojka Kolar Celarc, however, rejected the protest as “blackmail”, arguing that plans for negotiations were already underway.

Slovenia, a nation of two million, has been struggling to recover from a deep financial crisis, during which it narrowly avoided a bailout in 2013.