Romania Railway Employees Protest In Bucharest Over Potential Job Cuts

Protesters will picket the ministry’s headquarters and then march up to the government building, displeased with the Transport Ministry’s plan to fire about 12,000 of them.

Ministry officials on Tuesday said they are “surprised” that railway employees plan to stage protests and stressed the ministry sent the railway company CFR variants to render its activity more efficient, not a plan to scrap 12,000 jobs.

The Transport Ministry denies having sent unions a restructuring program that entails the layoff of over 12,000 people. The ministry proposed that all employees be kept, but with lower salaries, by eliminating or lowering certain bonuses or that some employees be fired and the salaries of those remaining increased.

Sub-secretary of state in the Transport Ministry Constantin Axinia said during a press conference Tuesday that he is “surprised” that, after months of talks with unionists, no solution has been reached and railway employees will rally Wednesday to protests against plans to have 12,000 people fired.

"We never imposed this number on unionists. We’ve only talked about people of retirement age who should leave the railway company. There are 3,494 employees nearing retirement age and 287 of retirement age,” Axinia said.

The official said unionists were asked to get people nearing retirement age to retire and were told a new analysis of the budget would be made afterwards and “layoffs would continue if necessary". He added unionists replied they can’t do anything and can’t make people leave.

The restructuring program sent by the Transport Ministry to unionists within CFR on March 20 stipulated the cutting of 12,139 staff in the entire railway system. Unionists and officials of the ministry had several rounds of negotiations since, but failed to reach common ground.