31 May, 2010
Some 60,000 trade union members of five Romanian union confederations manifested in Bucharest’s Victoriei Square on 19 May, demanding that the government not implement its planned cuts on public-sector wages, pensions, and social services.
Trade unions, civil society groups, and doctors, teachers, and ordinary citizens promise a general strike that could begin tomorrow, 31 May, if the center-right government of Prime Minister Emil Boc moves ahead with its plan to cut public-sector pay by 25%, pensions and unemployment benefits by 15%, and public services by 15% on 1 June.
The cuts were made in a letter of intent to the US-based International Monetary Fund (IMF) in exchange for a US$20 billion loan from the IMF and the EU in order to balance the country’s budget. Prior to the 19 May manifestation, the IMF made public its concern against such drastic cuts, expressing a preference for a balance between public curtailments and new revenue sources such as taxes.
19 May Manifestation in Victoriei Square
Trade unions are calling for a system of progressive taxation, with the right to retain a decent job, the right to education opportunities, and the right to retire in dignity without fear of dire poverty. The trade union confederations propose that Romanian government ministries cut their bureaucracies.
The government’s austerity programme includes a 15% cut in child and child-rearing allowances. Currently, women workers receive 85% of their pre-maternity average pay after childbirth. The government’s proposed cuts would slash that to 60%. In an already understaffed national medical system in which doctors earn average monthly pay of only €350, the cuts would mean another 10% of doctors would leave Romania for countries that have higher salaries. Education has already been affected. Some 15,000 teachers will be sacked this year because of the austerity plan.
For ICEM affiliated trade unions in the public sector, including FSLI-Petrom at the state oil company, Chimie-Petrochimie Lazar Edeleanu, Chimie-Petrochimie CSI, and Centrala Nationala Minera Federation, the cuts could be devastating since some 80,000 public-sector jobs would be lost, and there is sure to be a spin-off effect into private sector employment.
The five labour confederations resisting the government’s wide-ranging social cuts comprise unions in the mining, metallurgical, chemicals, agriculture, textile, transportation, and education sectors. They include the Fratia National Confederation of Free Trade Unions (CNSLR-Fratia), the Cartel Alfa National Trade Union Confederation (CNS Cartel Alfa), the National Trade Union Bloc (BNS), the Meridian National Trade union Confederation, and the Democratic Trade Union Confederation of Romania (CSDR).
The trade union confederations have already declared 19 May as a historic day of national solidarity against injustice in the central European country, and vow that any attempt by the government to impose its terms will bring the nation to its biggest social crisis of the past 20 years.