Employees Of Romanian Carmaker Dacia Continue General Strike
The union leaders said the plant’s management forwarded a proposition to up wages by 20 lei (EUR1=RON3.7322) provided workers discard health treatment tickets, which unionists deemed unacceptable.
Dacia Pitesti management said 2,386 employees, namely 40% of employees working in the first shift Tuesday were on strike. On March 24, 49% of the employees working in the first shift, or 3,025 people, were on strike.
Union leaders, in their turn, said that the lists of signatures indicate that 76% of employees agreed to go on strike with nearly one hundred employees joining the strike every day.
The Arges Court is to rule Wednesday, April 2, on the request of the plant’s management to cease the general strike citing the insufficient number of signatures for the general strike and the unionists’ alleged illegal demands.
Dacia employees went on general strike Monday morning, March 24, after failed negotiations over salary hikes.
Employees demanded a raise of RON550, but the management only offered a 12% raise applied to the minimum gross salary, and a 18.5% raise for employees with minim wages.
The management said that all the employee’s demands would result in a raise of over 70%, which is unacceptable considering that Dacia still has to recover losses of EUR61 million.
The carmaker employs 13,000 people.