While this reduction was initially distributed in three monthly tranches of 15.5 percent, because the approval of the law was delayed by the Constitutional Court, the only options now left to bring about this reduction are two 23 percent tranches or a halving of the December salary.
The representatives of the Confederacy of Civil Servants are to meet today to decide how the law will be applied, and they would prefer to opt for a reduction in the number of daily working hours than for unpaid holiday, which would be detrimental for employees in terms of seniority and pension. President Traian Băsescu yesterday signed the salary law and the law for reorganizing certain public institutions, after the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) decided the day before that these two pieces of legislation are constitutional.
“Things were set since the beginning. Revenues had to be cut by 46.5 percent in the October-December period, at a monthly average of 15.5 percent. Considering that the measure was not applied in October, because the law was at the Constitutional Court, the reduction must be applied in the last two months of this year,” President of the Sed Lex Confederacy, Vasile Marica, told Business Standard. When contacted by Business Standard, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Labour, Mihai Şeitan, said that civil servants will either have an unpaid holiday or will opt for another way to cut costs in the last two months of this year. The options suggested by law for this cost cut are a ten-day unpaid holiday, fewer working hours, or a combination of the two. “If the law includes the phrases ‘on average’ and ‘the October-December period,’ this means the reduction proposed for three months will be applied in two months. Hence, either salaries are cut by 23 percent per month, or the entire reduction will be applied on the salary in a single month,” the President of the Federation of Free Trade Unions in Education (FSLI), Aurel Cornea, said.
