Romanian PM Says Union Protests Fail To Sway Him

Tariceanu visited Wednesday the oil industry equipment plant Confind in Campina. The plant, according to the Top 500 compiled by daily Adevarul, belongs to businessman Ioan Simion, liberal candidate in the Campina uninominal constituency for the Chamber of Deputies.

 

Towards the end of his visit, Tariceanu addressed the employees of the plant, speaking about business, as well as the protests announced by teachers. In this context, Tariceanu said "some union leaders do not come bearing the truth" when they speak of teachers’ wages and they only mention the base salary when they speak of the low salaries in education, but fail to mention the bonuses received by teachers.

 

"There are the salaries, with bonuses, class master bonuses, additional classes, many bonuses not spoken on. This is not an honest approach. This is not the right way to do things. I’m not saying salaries are high. Surely everyone wants to earn more. But everything needs to be correlated with the possibilities of the economy,” Tariceanu said, referring to teacher wages.

 

He explained to the employees that all public sector workers are paid from their taxes and all sectors desire better living, but economic realities must not be overlooked.

 

"I am not so easily swayed and their general strike does not scare me either. Every Romanian citizen needs to understand that everything is obtained through efforts and solidarity,” Tariceanu said.

 

Romanian education federation "Spiru Haret" asked the Parliament in a letter to meet urgently and reject the Emergency Ordinance the Government approved Tuesday to postpone until April 1 the 50% hike in teachers’ wages.

 

This is the only viable solution to allow teachers to benefit from the wage hike adopted by the Senate and later by the Chamber of Deputies, the federation said.

 

The federation is protesting against “the strategy used by the Government again”, to turn other social categories against teachers, parents and children especially, hoping the education unionists will give in to the pressure of the public opinion.