Higher salaries for railway workers and the police?

In Bucharest, the representatives of interior ministry employees and railway workers have negotiated pay rises with the administration.

Corina Cristea, 24.03.2017, 13:27

Police employees are staging three days of protests until Saturday, on Romanian Police Day, to demand that their salaries are also increased, as has happened in the healthcare system and other areas. On Thursday, they held a three-hour-and-a-half protest in front of the Labour Ministry building, where they blew vuvuzela horns, waved flags and carried placards saying that more than 60% of the Interior Ministry staff earns the minimum wage and warning that the equipment they work with is constantly degrading. During this time, police representatives were having talks with the ministry officials about the unitary pay law due to come into force on the 1st of July.

After the talks, the president of the National Trade Union of Police Employees and Contract Workers, Dumitru Coarna, said the Interior Ministry employees earning the minimum wage of around 320 euros will benefit from a pay rise when the new law comes into force. 86,000 employees will see their salaries double, in several stages, within the next four years. Dumitru Coarna said, however, that protests would go ahead as planned, with a rally in front of the Interior Ministry building followed by a march towards the Government building. Members of the two trade unions that organised the protests are expected to take part, as well as unaffiliated employees. Police employees request the government to issue an emergency order to revise their pay scale, eliminate certain caps on benefits, compensations, bonuses and individual allowances and increase pay for overtime and weekend and public holiday work.

Railway worker representatives have also obtained the promise of a pay rise this week. After two rounds of talks with the administration, it was decided that railway employees would see their salaries go up after the signing of the new collective employment contract. The wage bill of the Passenger Division of the Romanian Railways Company is to grow by more than 17%, while that of its Infrastructure Division by 22%. A new collective employment contract may be signed after the 5th of April.

Until then, a new agreement that extends the current contract will be applied. Fresh talks with the administration will take place next week to discuss proposals made by trade unions, including pay rises for the staff of the Freight Division of the Romanian Railways Company to reflect the amount of work performed. A spontaneous strike on Wednesday, when over 150 trains were cancelled, caused the Railways Company losses of around 17,500 euros.

(Translated by Cristina Mateescu)