Romania - Week of protest against austerity measures - September 27, 2010

From 20 September on, union confederations and public sector unions jointly organised a week of protest throughout the country against the government’s austerity measures as well as the 25% cuts in public sector pay, that the government in June imposed by law with effect from 2 July and applying until 31 December 2010. The key demands were for pay cuts to be rescinded and for a stop on planned redundancies. The demonstrators also protested against the changes in the Labour Code and the new Pension Law. It has been estimated that 34,000 public servants took part in strikes during the week of protest. On 27 September, Interior Minister Vasile Blaga announced his resignation after 6,000 police officers, angry over a 25% wage cut, marched to the presidential palace.

English: http://www.financiarul.ro/2010/09/21/trade-unionists ...

http://www.balkans.com/open-news.php?uniquenumber=72502

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/europe/Romanias-Interior-Minister ...

http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro/2010/08/articles/ro1008019i.htm

This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI atwww.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2009.