Austerity measures lead to 2,500 job cuts in ministries with more expected

The government is in the process of implementing €260 million of cuts that will hit public sector jobs as well as certain wage benefits, overtime and expenses. The government is also laying off around 5000 workers on temporary contracts. Unions have been involved in negotiations over the cuts package are arguing that the government has to analyse where to reduce employee numbers and not implement random cuts. [Read more at > SETimes news website (EN)->http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2012/03/06/feature-03] [And at > Balkan Insight news website (EN)->

The STAL local government union reports that the Constitutional Court has ruled that a number of changes to the Labour Code made in 2012 are invalid. The revisions cover negotiated holiday entitlement and compensatory rest, as well as rules on redundancy that had required employers to take seniority into account and to try to find jobs for workers made redundant. The rulings apply mainly to private sector employees who will get three days of holiday entitlement this year as well as any compensatory rest not taken since January 2012. Any workers dismissed since the beginning of 2012 will have

The FO Fonctionnaires trade union federation has attacked the government for planning more job cuts in the public sector at a time of rising unemployment. The federation says that 20,000 jobs went in 2008 and the plan is for a further 30,000 to go by the end of 2009. The government’s target for 2010 is even higher at 34,000. The union warns that this will add to the anger felt by public sector workers and it is calling for the government to suspend the job cuts immediately. [Read more at > FO (FR)->http://www.force-ouvriere.fr/page_principal/fede/index.asp?lk=fd&id=4365&fed=Fédération