Bulgaria - Healthcare workers face stagnant wages negotiations - April 30, 2024

Healthcare trade unions are facing a longstanding deadlock with employers over the sector collective agreement. This has led to stagnant wages for healthcare workers, worsening an existing staffing crisis. The two main trade union confederations, CITUB and Podkrepa, have voiced concerns over employers' chronic refusal to engage in negotiation processes for a new agreement, despite legal obligations outlined in national labour legislation and the Adequate Minimum Wage Directive that advocates for collective bargaining. The economic situation, with rising minimum wage, living costs, salaries, and inflation rates contrasts sharply with static wage levels in healthcare. Inflation rates averaged 15.3% in 2022 and 9.5% in 2023, making the wage growth disparity increasingly untenable.

Read on: in English… Read on: in Bulgarian… Read on: in Bulgarian (2)…

For more information, please contact Paul de Beer or Oana Ciuca, De Burcht (Scientific Bureau for the Dutch Trade Union Movement) p.t.debeer@uva.nl or the Head of communications at the ETUI, Mehmet Koksal mkoksal@etui.org. For previous full issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit https://www.etui.org/Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter or consult the archive with all articles in our database at www.cbnarchive.eu.
You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org.