Controversies surrounding the unitary pay law
In Romania, the new salary law and the transfer of the payment of social security contributions from employers to employees are already showing their effects.
Corina Cristea, 06.02.2018, 13:16
The National Liberal Party (PNL), the main opposition party in Romania, has decided to table a simple motion against Labor Minister Olguta Vasilescu for reasons that are mainly related to the salary system. The Liberals are also criticizing the transfer of the payment of social security contributions from employers to employees, a measure that has been in force since the beginning of the year, and claim that this measure has only added to the confusion already existing in the Romanian salary and fiscal systems.
“Whether they are magistrates, IT staff, teachers, medical doctors or what we call ‘luxury’ public employees, which the Labor Minister has recently mentioned – all these categories will see their salaries cut, because nobody bothered to make an impact study to see what the transfer of social security contributions entails, thats why we are in this situation,” the Liberals said, referring to the fact that salaries are decreasing for several hundred thousand Romanians, in spite of their expected increase, stipulated in the governing programme.
The employees’ net salaries will go down in several sectors, such as healthcare, culture, police and justice, trade union leaders also warn. Moreover, the leader of the SANITAS trade union federation representing healthcare workers, Viorel Husanu, has said that salaries will decrease in monoprofile hospitals, such as psychiatry, tuberculosis and infectious diseases, and will only increase for physicians, and even in their case the growth is smaller than promised.
Operative policemen, around 8,000 of them, will also see a decrease in net salaries of around 85 euros, according to the head of the Policemen’s National Trade Union, Dumitru Coarna, according to whom the living standard will go down by 5% to10%. There are unsatisfied employees in the private sector as well, where not all employers have signed addendums to their labor contracts that should stipulate an increase in gross salaries so as decreases in net salaries should be avoided.
Moreover, 3% of the public system employees have smaller salaries following the enforcement of the law on the salary scheme for the staff paid from public funds. According to Minister Olguta Vasilescu, the purpose of this law has been to balance the public salary system and eliminate major discrepancies, such as different salaries for the same job. There are also happy Romanians, such as the parliament members, whose salaries went up by around 10% starting in February, following an increase in the minimum salary to around 410 euros, as of January 1st.
