Protest week begins on Monday with teachers and public servants going on strike
Date: 31-05-2010
The trade unions in education and the public servants on Monday start the series of protest actions announced by the confederations in several fields against the Government's austerity measures, among which there is the 25 percent cut in salaries and the 15 percent cut in pensions and allowances to help bring up children.The general strike in education is organized at the same time with the school-leaving examination, which is to be taken by more than 200,000 secondary school pupils all over Romania. In spite of the announcements made by trade union leaders referring to teachers not participating in the tests of the school-leaving examination, Minister of Education Daniel Funeriu, who organized video-conferences with school inspectorates two days on end, assured that the school-leaving examination would be held normally in all counties.
On Monday, May 31, too, almost 50 trade unions and over 25,000 public servants and contract working staff, members of Publisind, in all fields of activity (public finance, financial checking, the Self-Governing Department for Administration of the State Heritage and Protocol, city halls, penitentiaries, child protection, county councils, central administration, the media, probation, transports and agriculture) informed, through the agency of Stefan Teoroc, president of the Publisind Federation of Public Servants, they would stop working. And this strike is the first of the plan approved by the executive bureau of the Trade Union National Bloc, which includes the continuation of the strike for an unstated span of time, the organization of rallies in all counties, outside prefectures, every day over June 1-4, asking for meetings with parliamentarians, during which they should request the rejection of the austerity measures imposed by the Government, organizing a human chain around the Parliament building and starting the strike on the day when the censure motion is to be voted on.
The executive bureau of the National Federation of Trade Unions in Administration, a nationally representative federation, the public administration branch consisting of more than 50,000 members, contract working staff and public servants in city halls, county councils and institutions subordinated to them all over Romania, also informed it would go on a general strike for an unstated span of time, starting on May 31.
The employees working in the medical system in the 500 medical units affiliated to the Sanitas Federation will also go on strike on Monday. In the units referred to only the emergency rooms will work. More than 10,000 employees of the ambulance service also go on strike on Monday for an unstated span of time.
The workers of the underground railway system and of the surface electric transport will go on strike in sympathy with the trade unions in administration and education on Tuesday, June 1. Thus, Ion Radoi, president of the Federation of the Trade Unions in Transports and Public Services ATU Romania and president of the Union of Free Trade Unions in the underground railway system, informed that the Bucharest underground, the trams and trolleybuses would not run on June 1 between 4 am and 4 pm.
On the other hand, president of the carriers working with the Bucharest Transport Public Corporation (RATB) Mircea Ionescu said on Friday, after the meeting he had with Bucharest Mayor Sorin Oprescu, that 85 percent of the RATB vehicles, namely trams, buses and trolleybuses, would run during the general strike. According to him, only one of the 11 RATB trade unions, which is made up of 2,400 members, would go on sympathetic strike. Ionescu made it clear that, of the 2,400 members, only 1,200 were tram and trolleybus drivers.
According to Agerpres, pensioners too announced protest actions over May 31-June 4 and warned that, in case the Government did not reconsider the measures meant to cut pensions by 15 percent, the National Federation of the Pensioners' Trade Unions would address to the EU, but also to the European Court of Human Rights 'for justice to be done.' According to leader of the Alliance of the Europensioners in Romania Toader Cristea, the pensioners living in Galati (eastern Romania) will picket the headquarters of the Government and Parliament on May 31 and in the time to come the elderly think of chaining themselves to the trees in the Izvor Park or go on hunger strike.
