The Autumn of Union protests

Exasperated by the Romanian government’s austerity measures and salary cuts, trade unions are trying to arrest the government’s attention through large-scale protests. They claim an end to redundancies and keeping the Labour Code in the present format.

Unions also demand a nation-wide minimum salary of at least 750 lei (about 175 euros) and the return to the 2009 salaries. Salaries in the public sector dropped by 25% on July 1st, the government thus aiming to reduce spending in order to reach the 6.8% budget deficit target, agreed upon with the International Monetary Fund.

The leader of the Fratia Romanian National Free Unions’ Confederation, CNSRL, Marius Petcu made it clear that for the time being, the unions confederations had not agreed on a joint timetable of protests.


“The signs we’ve received so far show that we can’t correlate our protests. Let me clearly and unequivocally point out that on September 22nd, CNSRL Fratia will have over 20,000 unionists in the streets. Also, we hear that some of our colleagues would like only to make believe that they participate in protests, preferring minor protests like picketing or insignificant protest demonstrations in the area.” said Marius Petcu.

He went on to say that through the September 22nd protest, they tried to launch a serious alarm signal and they would no longer accept what he called the austerity policy affecting only employees and ordinary citizens.


More over, he announced a number of rallies to take place in counties between September 27th and 30th. Another large-scale protest will take place on October 7th, World Decent Labour Day, to be attended by employees from all areas of the public sector. In the struggle with the incumbent rulers, the opposition joins the union movement.

“We’ll work together to incorporate their viewpoints into the government programme which the Social Democratic party is going to present on October 16th”, the party’s president, Victor Ponta said.

He said that his party would also cooperate with the trade unions in the legitimate actions against the government, both through parliamentary channels such as the censure motion or other motions, and through any other democratic means.

The president of the National Trade Union Bloc, Dumitru Costin said that he had discussed with the social-democrats the need for the Social Code to be amended and the setting up of a medicine exchange because, he said, the end user only gets medicines at far higher prices than the real ones.

It remains to be seen to what extent the unions protests and the opposition’s actions will yield the results they expect.

(Radio România Internaţional, Serviciul în limba engleză).