Underground workers will be on general strike as of March 18. Train traffic will come to a halt 4.00 am to 4:00 pm, and will resume at full capacity up to 11.00 pm, the president of the Metro Free Trade Union (USLM), Ioan Radoi announced yesterday. Mediafax reported the union leader as saying that workers demand a 3.7 per cent pay increase, according to the law, and better working conditions. “Formally speaking, there’s nothing to negotiate anymore. We are told the budget has not passed, yet, it should have, in the first week of February, under the law. Minister Berceanu should have taken relevant steps, yet, Finance Minister Sebastian Vladescu was willing to talk to us, not the transport minister, who would not meet us during the four months since this strike kicked off,” Radoi said, adding that trade unionists could go on strike in the wake of the Bucharest Court of Appeals verdict March 2, which ruled the November 2009 industrial action legal. Radoi is nonetheless hopeful Government “will have avoided the general strike” by March 18. He again brought up what he considers to be the ‘damaging’ contract struck with Alston, to which Government pays EUR 15 M a year, given that before the deal, Metrorex employees provided maintenance at a yearly cost of 10-11 M a year, while the all the trains were old, whereas now, 75 per cent of them are new and the workforce halved.

According to USLM lawyer Laurentiu Veteleanu, Metrorex may challenge the ruling in court, yet an appeal verdict would not be issued earlier than four months, and metro employees could still be on general strike this time. Subway employees were on a two-day strike in November of last year, when they demanded a 20 per cent pay raise and a new collective work contract as the former one expired earlier in the month. More than 650,000 passengers were affected by the industrial action at the time.