Trade unions accept minimum salary at RON 705 in the public sector

The leader of 'Cartel Alfa' trade unions federation, Bogdan Hossu (photo) said after a meeting with the Labour minister that he supports a law on collective layoffs that would solve the rights of those to be made redundant and would provide for their professional reconversion and reintegration on the labour market.

"The minimum salary should reach 34 pc of the average salary in the economy this year. Trade unions agreed to make a compromise, because we should have reached a minimum salary of RON 748 in the public sector. The compromise was to accept that no discrimination should be made between the economic and public sectors, and keep the minimum guaranteed salary at RON 705 in the public sector," Hossu explained.

On the other hand, the increasing cost of living, combined with the failure to increase salaries will send people to the streets. Hossu does not rule out the possibility of unions' federations resorting to such moves in the future, as a consequence of price hikes. The pressures come both from own structures and from pensioners, as everybody is unhappy with the extra burden put by increased prices for certain products, and this trend is expected to go on in the future too. The leader of 'Cartel Alfa' said he asked the Labour Minister to draft legislation on collective layoffs that will protect the people to be made redundant.

In his turn, CNSLR Fratia leader Marius Petcu said that, if the Government does not take responsibility over setting the minimum salary at RON 705, "we will have a clear situation of discriminating employees in Romania, in the public and economic sectors equally." Petcu added that the meal vouchers will be scrapped only in the public sector. According to the same source, the leaders of trade unions federations will meet the Labour Minister on a monthly basis, "to overcome the crisis situation."

FSSR: We reject the scrapping of meal vouchers

The Steering Board of the 'Solidaritatea Sanitara' Unions Federation strongly rejects the measure that cuts meal vouchers throughout the public system, and calls all trade unions in the system to unite "against this abuse," FSSR writes in a release signed by its president, Viorel Rotila.

"In a country where the effects of economic crisis were amplified by political mistakes, scrapping the meal vouchers will severely worsen the salary-based poverty. We consider that budget restrictions must not affect the food safety of civil servants. This measure, corroborated with the salary cuts caused by the blanket salary law, will have as effect an increase of the migration of medical personnel from the health sector, against the background of the already existing serious deficit of personnel," claims the union leader. Unionists made an appeal to the parliamentarians who still believe in social justice, whom they asked to bring an amendment against this measure during debates over the draft State Budget Law for 2010.

"We urge the Government to fulfill its legal obligation of consulting the social partners prior to passing such measures that have a deep social impact," Viorel Rotila concludes his statement. The Government enforced the measure of eliminating meal vouchers from the public system through the Emergency Ordinance 114/2009.

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