Romania
The government has announced that it wants to make deep cuts in public spending in 2011 to avoid having to call on the International Monetary Fund for further loans. Public sector pay could be cut by 25% and pensions by 15%. Unions and opposition parties are planning protests and the Sex Lex civil service federation is consulting members over strike action.
Read more at > Sed Lex (RO)
And at > SETimes (EN)
Read more at > Irish Times (EN)
Public service union IMPACT has criticised a report from the ESRI research organisation that calls for pay cuts in the public sector. The union says that the report uses 2006 figures, which take no account of the current public service pay freeze or the 7.5% average cut in gross pay suffered by all public servants under the so-called ‘pensions levy’. Nor does it include incomes for self-employed professionals, who are the obvious private sector ‘comparators’ for thousands of public service professional staff. [Read more at > IMPACT (EN)->http://www.impact.ie/iopen24/newsdesk_info.php?newsdesk
A proposed new system of public sector pay has been criticised by unions for failing to provide salary coefficients for different occupations that would be a fair reflection their skills, workloads and responsibilities. The HSSMS-MT health workers’ union has called for proper recognition of nurses’ level of education and have made clear that it feels its members have been less fairly treated than doctors who are taken action against the proposals. The SDLSN union has also expressed concern, particularly on behalf of its members in the Ministry of Justice who took strike action last year over
Following his party's victory in the general election in April, new prime minister Aleksander Vucic has made the public sector one of the first targets of reform. He plans cuts in public sector employment and a 10% pay cut for the workers who are left. Unions are calling for other cuts rather than pay cuts as many workers already struggle to make ends meet. Read more at > SE Times news website (EN)
