The current government, led by Nicolae Cucă, has taken over the reins of the Romanian economy in an extremely delicate period. Anticipating certain situations, the cabinet came with a minimum package of social measures, in the context of the crisis in which Romania is. But the proposed measures are short-term, and important ones, such as the 2017 Payroll Act, have remained in line with priorities this time as well. For this reason, at the end of 2021 and now at the beginning of 2022, the unions have started to make their presence felt again. The reason is simple, the law of 2017 has remained overdue, and the salary increases established by this law have not been made since 2020.
Prime Minister Nicolae Cucă and the “legacy” left by the former governments
In 2017, Law no. 153/2017, in short, the Salary Law, which provided for salary increases for most employees in the Romanian budget system. Whether they were employees in education, administrative systems or the medical system, according to the law, they had to receive salary increases. The staging was set for the next four years, from 2018 to 2021 inclusive, but in January 2021, the Cîțu Government imposed the austerity ordinance suspending the staged application of this law. Against the background of the pandemic, the economic crisis and the lack of money in the centralized budget, the decision of the government led by Florin Cîțu displeased the unions. With the coming to power of the new PSD-PNL-UDMR coalition, several packages of social measures were brought, most of them being applicable, mainly due to the explosion of gas and electricity prices. Other measures were taken into account by the more than 4 million pensioners, but the application of the wage law remained, again, on the last place. The beginning of the year also brought new trade union movements, as can be seen these days, through the strikes of STB employees , on the same background of the lack of salary increases. In this context, on January 6, Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă had several meetings with representatives of trade unions in the Romanian medical system, but also with education unions, this being a much larger backlog of salary increases. At the beginning of the year, Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca had a dialogue with the leaders of the Romanian trade union federations, attended by the Minister of Education, Sorin Cîmpeanu, the Minister of Health, Alexandru Rafila, the Minister of Finance, Adrian Câciu, and the Minister of Labor, Marius Budai. and working conditions and wages.
Health unions promise new increases salary
At that time, no general agreement was reached by the unions, so a meeting was held yesterday, also with the union representatives from Health and Education . Compared to the STB strikes, members of the Health and Education unions protested, but at work, until yesterday’s meeting at Victoria Palace. At the end of the meeting, a conclusion was reached and, implicitly, a decision from Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă, namely the allocation from the state budget of funds for salary increases . In other words, Nicolae Ciucă undertook to increase the salaries in Health by „ ¼ from the difference between the basic salary provided by the Framework Law no. 153/2017 for the year 2022 and those for December 2021 ”. Another decision was that in the next 120 days of government, the timetable for amending Law no. 153/2017, but also the reform of the salary law, a commitment assumed through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.
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