Youth, Prisons Services, Romania, Azerbaijan, Austria, Albania

The Publisind trade union federation organised a protest rally on 17 August outside the Ministry of Labour to highlight a range of issues relating to the pay and pensions of its members in prisons and police services. The union is angry that a key law on salaries has not been fully implemented and is calling for a 15% pay rise for prison and police staff. The union points out that its members were essential to the efforts to tackle the COVID pandemic with many staff working very long hours to try to maintain services in the face of staff shortages of around 25%.

Following a meeting with the justice minister, the prisons section of the GÖD public service union has announced that the government is committed to create 75 new jobs and 100 training places to tackle the excessive workloads faced across the prison service. The talks also discussed the prospects for a quicker and more effective process for appointing prison staff and a plan for an expert study of the sector that would assist in drawing up standard safety guidelines.

(October 2016) The SNLP union representing prison staff has been organising a series of protests over serious staffing shortages and very high levels of uncompensated overtime. The prison service needs around 8000 extra staff and the union warns that this not only raises serious health and safety issues but undermines attempts at rehabilitation.