About 85% Of Bucharest’s Public Transport Vehicles To Function On Strike Day, June 1

Public transport union leader Mircea Ionescu said at the end of negotiations with Oprescu that 85% of Bucharest's 537 trams and trolleys will function on June 1.

"We decided not to go on solidarity strike as the austerity measures announced by the Government don't affect us," said Ionescu, adding the 1,000 buses that ensure public transportation in Bucharest will also function on June 1.

Bucharest public transport authority RATB has 11 unions with about 11,800 members, and only one union wants to go on strike on June 1, in solidarity with other public sector employees, highlighted Ionescu.

Subway union leader Ioan Radoi announced early Friday that Romanian subway and Bucharest public transport unionists will go on strike on June 1, between 4 a.m. and 4 p.m., in solidarity with other public sector employees, but may extend the strike indefinitely in protest to planned wage cuts.

Romania's Government will seek a confidence vote in Parliament to adopt two laws lowering public sector wages and cutting pensions, in a move to bring the budget deficit to 6.8% of GDP under the terms of a EUR20 billion IMF-led rescue loan agreed last year.

About half a million state employees in schools and public institutions go on strike indefinitely as of Monday and other state employees in healthcare, transports the penitentiary system, and even some in the private sector, will strike out of solidarity.

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