18 March, 2011Some 8,000 people were in the streets of Bucharest protesting against the Government's decision to introduce changes in the Labour Code that will weaken collective bargaining rights and lead to increased precarious employment.
ROMANIA: On March 16, some 8,000 trade unionists came out to the Constitution Square of Bucharest to protest against Government proposed changes to Romanian labour laws.
According to the letter of the International Trade Union Confederation ITUC sent to the Romanian Chamber of Deputies, the "Government proposals will severely limit the possibility for setting up new grass roots organisations and will undermine representativity of organisations on different levels by effectively decentralising collective bargaining and tying it primarily to company-level negotiations. The changes will further dilute the protection of workers' rights on the individual level by opening to abuse the regulations on fixed-term contracts, shifting the burden of proof from the employer to the worker, and imposing more "flexible" schemes for working-time arrangements."
The protest action was organized by five trade union confederations including Cartel Alfa whose member Trade Union Federation METAROM is also an IMF affiliate.
The protesters carried signs and banners protesting against the suggested changes and accused the president of the country, Traian Basescu and Prime Minister Emil Boc on imposing the changes without consultation. "Save the Labour Code!", "Down, down, down with the lying Government!", "Down with Basescu slavery", "Leave us be!" some of the banners read.
The trade unions warn that this action is the beginning of a series of industrial protests in case the Government applies the changes. The unions have already started collection of signatures to hold a general strike.
Railway workers expressed their solidarity with the protesters; several hundreds of them came to Bucharest in order to voice their displeasure with the Government's plans. The Romanian Railways (CFR) protested by stopping all traffic for two hours.
The protest action accompanied the Romanian Parliament center-left opposition no-confidence vote against the Prime-Minister Emil Boc, however the vote did not gather the required majority.
The European Commission is considering if the applied changes are in compliance with the legislation of the European Union. During his meeting with the Romanian MEPs Laszlo Andor, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion expressed his concerns over the proposed amendments to the Labour Code.
Later the Romanian Social and Democratic Party (PSD) issued a press-release warning that Romania risks facing the EU infringement procedure for lack of social dialogue.