Public salary draft to be withdrawn amid controversies, trade unions claim

The emergency ordinance draft on the public salary grid will be withdrawn, the trade union leaders announced on Tuesday after leaving the negotiations with the Labour minister.

The trade unions say the draft is increasing the gap between those with high incomes and those with low incomes. The trade unions plan to protest in front of the Government as of Monday.

According to a FSLI education trade union leader, the Labour minister pledged to withdraw the controversial draft.

In his turn, the CNS Cartel Alfa leader, Bogdan Hossu, stated that after two hours of talking, the Government seems to have understood the social partners’ message, while the Labour minister Ana Costea vowed to officially withdraw the emergency ordinance draft on Wednesday. “It’s a step forward to solve the problems,” Hossu said.

PM Dacian Ciolos and the ministers in charge of the salary draft will convene on Tuesday evening to talk on the conclusions of the negotiations. According to the Labour minister’s adviser, Cosmin Andreica, Ana Costea will resign if her opinion regarding the ordinance draft is not considered, as she announced she was not endorsing the draft anymore.

The emergency ordinance draft would handicap teachers, who are to lose money, but also the health staff who would add only few ron to their current wages. Instead, the draft stipulates higher salaries for the MPs.

On the other hand, the Finance minister Anca Dragu stated on Tuesday that the ordinance doesn’t stipulate any salary cuts for anybody. She added that the impact will be of RON 300 M in 2016 and over RON 2 bln in 2017.

“There is no cut in the salary ordinance (…) We are trying to level the wages and o cut the inequities in the system (…) The net impact is RON 300 M. We have this money. For the next year, the impact is over RON 2 bln,” Dragu argued.