800,000 public sector workers strike in Romania Special

Public sector workers in Romania staged a strike against pay cuts and mandatory unpaid leave. Around 800,000 protested on Monday and a mass rally is planned for Wednesday.

Hundreds of thousands of state workers in Romania went on strike Oct. 5. According to BusinessWeek, the number of medical workers, teachers and other public sector employees on strike totaled 800,000. The strike was in protest of a law that state employees think will cut their salaries. BusinessWeek reports that The Alliance of State Workers, a group of trade unions, "is calling on the government to renegotiate a wage law, end lay-offs and stop unpaid vacation." As a result of the strike, some schools were closed on Monday while others stayed open with teachers simply supervising students and not conducting classroom sessions. To show solidarity with the public workers, police wore white armbands. Otilia Iancu, whose hometown is Iasi, Romania which is one of the most populus cities in the country, told me:

My son Josh, who is in the sixth grade, stayed home Monday. His school Colegiul 'C. Negruzzi' was open but the teachers stayed in cancelarie (teachers' lounge). My sister, who is a medical doctor, was at work because she is self-employed. She is not paid by the government. Only those in hospitals owned and run by the government protested. Emergency rooms had full personnel but clinics functioned with minimum staff.

Financiarul quoted Prime Minister Emil Boc as saying:

The strikes can endanger the payment of wages and pensions in Romania.Currently we have no problems with the payment of wages, of pensions or social allowances, neither in 2009, nor in 2010. But the continuation of strikes can endanger stability and the collection of revenues to the state budget, to be used to pay the budget obligations

The proposed unitary wage law and mandated unpaid leave for workers in the public sector are at the heart of the discontent among trade unionists. According to Morning Star, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pressured Romania to impose pay cuts. The Romanian government acquiesced to the demands because the US-dominated IMF loaned " recession-hit Romania $17.1 billion (£10.7bn)." Moreover, a 10-day unpaid holiday for state was decreed by the government, and "tens of thousands" of state workers are likely to lose their jobs in 2010. Unions were not consulted about a new law that slashes pay for public workers, and according to Morning Star, the unions "insist that it is time to draw a line in the sand, pointing out that teachers and hospital staff in Romania already earn just £310 a month on average, a fraction of EU levels." Trade unions say they will extend the general strike and stage a mass rally Wednesday in Bucharest to continue their protest.