The unitary salary
\nlaw and the law under which the obligation to pay the contributions to the
\nsocial security fund was transferred from employers to employees have triggered
\na genuine tsunami. Although the government, formed by the Social Democratic
\nParty and its junior partner the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, says that
\nthe two laws have corrected major dysfunctions in the system, which will lead
\nto salary increases for some, but also decreases for others, trade unions say
\nit’s all lies and manipulation. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
In a much-awaited
\npress conference on Tuesday, the Labour Minister Lia Olguta Vasilescu said
\nthat, when the salary law was adopted in June last year, the ratio between the
\nminimum salary and the maximum one, that of the president of the country, was 1
\nto 18, and the Government’s plan is to bring it to 1 to 12. Moreover, salary
\nadjustments were necessary, given that, for the same positions and
\nresponsibilities, public servants were paid differently. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
However, there is a
\nsignificant number of categories of public employees who have been complaining
\nthat their salaries have dropped since the two laws came into force. The
\nminister, however, does not agree, stating that only the big salaries have been
\ncut, accounting for 3% of the state employees. Labour Minister Lia Olguta
\nVasilescu:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
I would like to
\nstress the fact that everybody knew about the 3% of the public sectors
\nemployees whose salaries were to be cut. I, for myself, have announced that in
\nseveral interviews, but also in the parliamentary committees, where the salary
\nlaw was debated. Obviously, we would have liked not to reduce any salary in the
\npublic sector. But, in order to observe the 1 to 12 ratio, which is the fair
\none and in line with the EU legislation, salary adjustments had to be operated,
\nboth in the case of those whose salaries were higher than that of the
\npresident, and in the case of certain public servants, whose salaries were
\ntwice as high as that established in the salary scheme for 2022.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The opposition
\nNational Liberal Party is intent on filing a simple no-confidence motion
\nagainst the Labour Minister. The Liberal MP Dan Valceanu believes that Lia
\nOlguta Vasilescu has avoided speaking about the real effects of the decisions
\nmade by the Government. Dan Valceanu:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
What the minister did was to merely read from the
\ntext of the law, without telling us what’s going to happen to court clerks,
\npolice officers, employees of the county statistics offices, the teachers who
\nare paid by the hour or other categories of employees who are now in a
\nsituation in which they have to pay the state for the work they do, and not the
\nother way round. I hear the minister telling us things about pensions,
\nforgetting to mention, for instance, that pensioners have not actually seen
\ntheir pensions rise on January 1st, as they should have been. Also,
\nshe told us that there’s nothing they can do about the private sector. I myself
\ndid not understand anything she said, what I heard was a reading from the text
\nof the law and what she said in the end, namely that people should read the
\nlaw.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
If we look at how much of the state budget went to
\nsalaries, we see that the sums are considerable, namely 57 billion lei in 2016,
\n70 billion in 2017 and an expected 80 billion in 2018. According to the
\ngovernment, this shows that Romanians’ salaries will grow significantly. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New salary and social contribution laws spark discontent in Romania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":63960,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[116464,29374],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-76410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-romania-en","tag-salary-law"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n