Chivu, Luminiţa

During 2004, Romanian civil servants - who have been allowed to join a trade union only since 2003 - have been opposing government proposals for a new law on civil service pay and seeking changes to the statute governing their employment. In late June 2004, a protocol was signed by the two sides, stating that the dispute will be solved through dialogue within a month and that, for the first time, a national agreement will be concluded on civil service pay and conditions.

In May 2004, negotiations in Romania over a national collective agreement for 2004 broke down and the bargaining process has been put on hold. While 10 out of 12 nationally representative employers’ organisations and four out of five nationally representative trade union confederations agreed to sign a draft accord, the Cartel Alfa union confederation refused to do so, as it rejected the proposed increase in the national minimum wage.

In April 2004, the Romanian government adopted a restructuring strategy for the mining sector for the 2004-10 period. It envisages that 48,000 jobs out of 68,000 in the industry will be cut, accompanied by financial assistance, job creation measures and retirement. Trade unions have given a muted response to the strategy, with many miners already seeking to leave the industry.

Three trade union federations representing workers in the Romanian education system started protest actions in April 2004. Their main demands are for increases in salaries and a narrowing in pay differentials between different categories of staff.

On a visit to Romania in February-March 2004, International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials held informal consultations with nationally representative trade unions’ confederations and employers’ organisations. The social partners all expressed their support for a reduction in labour taxation, while trade unions also called for an increase in the public deficit. Although the government seems to be in favour of such demands, at present it faces difficulties in accommodating a number of contrasting pressures.

In February 2004, bargaining over a new collective agreement for the Romanian mining industry resulted in trade unions organising a two-hour warning strike. As well as demanding a pay increase much higher than offered by the government, the unions also raised concerns about the perceived lack of a sectoral strategy, large numbers of impending redundancies, and the inconsistency of social assistance programmes. The government eventually gave a favourable response to the majority of the union claims and a settlement was reached. However, a government decision to split up the National Lignite Company then sparked an indefinite strike in the industry.

In October 2003, the Romanian government issued proposals for a tripartite 'social stability pact', covering 2004. By the end of 2003, after several rounds of negotiations, the chances of the trade unions signing such a pact seemed slim, mainly because of a government decision to set a minimum wage rate far below that demanded by the unions.

Automotive manufacturing has been considered an important sector of Romanian industry over the past 30-40 years. However, in the last decade, industry as a whole has undergone significant restructuring. From 1991 to 2002, the number of employees diminished from about 3.4 million to 1.9 million (down by 45 %) and the number of companies increased from about 2,800 to over 45,000. Over the same period, the number of enterprises in the automotive sector increased from 39 to 376, while the number of employees fell from 125,000 to about 83,000. The production of the automotive sector has also declined significantly in the past decade. Production in 2002 compared with 1991 fell from: 84,000 cars (town and off-road) to 66,000; 2,226 buses and vans to seven; 75 trolleybuses to nine; and 7,592 trucks to 440.

On 2 October 2003, about 4,000 employees of Roman SA, a state-owned truck-manufacturing company located in Braşov (one of the largest towns in Romania) walked out while awaiting the results of negotiations at the Authority for Privatisation and Management of State Ownership (Autoritatea pentru Privatizare şi Administrarea Participaţiilor Statului, APAPS [1]) - the highest administrative body for Romania's remaining state-owned commercial companies - concerning the provisions of the contract for the firm's forthcoming privatisation. It turned out that the buyer, Pesaka Asana (M) Sdn Bhd, is going to take over only a part of the plant and will retain only 800 employees, and 3,000 employees (out of 5,000) will thus be made redundant, at least until a new industrial park is created at the site. The announcement of the job losses brought swift reactions from trade union representatives, who stated that they would hold protests until the issue was resolved. [1] http://www.apaps.ro/

In early August 2003, Miron Mitrea, the Minister of Transport, Construction and Tourism, announced a restructuring of the national railway system, stating that this would result in the redundancy of 19,000 employees of the public rail companies by 30 September 2003. Trade unions reacted promptly, considering unacceptable both the size of workforce reduction and the short timescale for implementing it. They argued that a rail transport strategy agreed by the government and social partners in 2001 provides that jobs are to be cut over a 13-year period, following a major modernisation of infrastructure.