Romanian railways unions threaten to strike in March

Marţi, 8 februarie 2011, 15:50 English | Top News

Unions in the Romanian railway sector threaten to strike in early March and on Tuesday they launched a conflict of interest procedure because collective labour contracts expired to all three companies. Union members claim that they will not accept a salary decrease nor collective negotiations.  

The activity of CFR, the railway company, will cease its activity in early March because unions do not believe that negotiations will end in their favor, Union leader Gheorghe Fratica declared. The unions are dissatisfied with the declarations of the IMF officials who agreed with the restructuring of the railway companies which was proposed by the government, on grounds that there are no other solutions. 

Unions claim that in the last 20 years the railway sector saw too much restructuring, leaving only 50,000 employees from a total of 230,000 initially. According to unions, about 6,000 employees risk to be laid off in March April and unions will take every measure that they can.