After the rally, planned for 11 AM, the unions are expected to be received by Prime Minister Miro Cerar, whom they plan to present with their demands, including an immediate suspension of privatisations.

Addressing reporters last week, representatives of all seven trade union confederations argued that Slovenia lacked a strategy to answer questions about how it wants to manage state assets and what the sale of state companies meant for the employees and the country's development.

They said that the main goal of the ongoing sale-off of state companies was aimless filling up of the state purse.

The unions say they are not against selling, but against what they describe as a "fire sale", calling for conditions to be put in place to make privatisation process transparent.

These include improvements to the takeover act, boosting the role of state institutions in the procedures and protecting shop stewards and worker representatives on management and supervisory boards, they say.

The rally has also been backed by the opposition United Left (ZL), which has been unsuccessfully trying to get parliament to revoke last year's approval of the privatisation of 15 companies.

Four of the companies have already been sold, most recently airport operator Aerodrom Ljubljana, with the privatisations of telecoms operator Telekom Slovenije and NKBM bank to be completed early next year.