Pensions, Salaries, Frozen For Six Months

• Education, medical unions promise to strike

After Vice Premier Dan Nica told the Cabinet yesterday morning that all Ministries would have austere budgets because the Government had to cope with a 2 billion EUR "hole" left by Tariceanu Government, which was jeopardizing the ruling programme and the promises made to the voters, news agencies released a piece of news that could throw the country into chaos and further compromise the Boc Government: all public salaries and pensions could be frozen by law for six months!

One of the first rounds of detailed analysis of the draft budget, held yesterday, seems to have determined the PSD and PD-L ministers of Premier Emil Boc to take note that there is no money to increase public salaries and pensions, as promised during the election campaign. In other words, all commitments made to the voters turn out groundless.

In fact, Mircea Geoana, President of the co-ruling party PSD and Speaker of the Senate, said on Monday that "there is a difference between what you promise during the election campaign and the actual act of ruling," thus suggesting that a new "change of mind" of the Boc Government should not surprise anyone. The situation is even more serious as the new budget draft could include a six-month freeze of all public salaries and pensions, although teaching staff salaries were set to increase between September and November 2009 in three steps of 10% each, according to governmental sources quoted by NewsIn. Moreover, a pensions raise was scheduled for September, through an increase of the unit to 45% of the average gross salary.

Before the discussion on the budget, Labour Minister Marian Sarbu was convinced that the increase of the pension unit to 45% of the average gross salary was "still sustainable" and that it would "probably" be performed in two steps before the end of 2009, "based on solutions that are acceptable to both pensioners and the State budget." From the "13th annual pension" promised to pensioners during an electoral tour last year by the second man in the State, Mircea Geoana, to a six-month freeze, the distance is quite long. President Traian Basescu does not seem too bothered by the current state of affairs as his statements on the subject seem to indicate that he supports the Government in their incapacity.

Interviewed by a radio channel, President Basescu said he would accept a possible six-month freeze of public salaries. "I will not have a negative reaction if the Government and the unions settle on a six-month freeze of pensions and salaries to allow the time it takes to see how the economy performs. We will see what happens and so we will be able to realize if we can pay more. If the economy is not moving, obviously, we do not collect money. If the economy is frozen and no one pays taxes because the companies are not working, we cannot afford it. Let us not panic. I am talking about freezing salaries for six months in order not to commit to expenses that we cannot cover."

The Government"s intention to freeze public salaries and pensions was met with threats of massive street protests and all-out strikes in the educational and medical sectors. CNSRL-Fratia union leader Marius Petcu (who also leads the Sanitas Union), said the union members were not going to accept a six-month freeze and were determined to take their protest to the streets in February, should the decision be included in the draft State Budget for 2009.

"We cannot possibly accept a six-month freeze as long as we were preparing to resume protests against the decision to cancel the raise agreed with the former Government," Petcu warned. The projected six-month freeze and the Government"s decision to cut 20% of the jobs in the State Administration seem to be the perfect recipe for trouble: "They are just trying to fool us with the promise to fire some 2,000 paper-pushers in their Ministries and ask us to accept worse terms for the entire public sector," Petcu added. "The Government is trying to flex their muscle against the unions and we are going to react accordingly," he concluded.

In turn, the education system unions threaten to stop ongoing negotiations on the framework labour agreement and consider an all-out strike if the Government proceeds with the six-month salary freeze. "If they freeze salaries, we freeze the framework labour agreement and the educational year," Alma Mater Union Federation leader Razvan Bobulescu explained.

The teaching staff in the pre-university system are equally outraged: "If Traian Basescu agrees to freeze the law which he personally signed, they he should freeze the entire Constitution and the Education Law. The unions went to negotiations with the Government, but they had no authorization to negotiate salaries, so the measure to freeze salaries was not legally negotiated. We will block the educational reform process, if politicians just don"t care about it," said Spiru Haret Union Federation leader Marius Nistor. In turn, Vasile Marica, president of the Sed Lex National Union Alliance, said his members were considering resuming protests as soon as the State Budget was adopted.