It will be impossible to apply the reduction of wages in the state sector using “proper legal solutions”, specialists in labour law claim, estimating that such a measure would lead to a great amount of litigations.
The lawyer Magda Volonciu, specialist in labour law, stated, for Mediafax, that the measure to reduce wages will be hard to apply, as Law 330/ 2009 on the unified wages of state employees sets some coefficients which need to be taken into account. “How can you reduce the wages of an appointed public servant? On what grounds? There are quite a lot who are already at the minimal level, what will you take from those? I fail to see any proper legal way to do that, except a forced decision,” the lawyer said. In her opinion, the reduction of funds allotted to wages will be performed by reducing the number of employees, rather than by reducing wages.
Magistrates warn: No use reducing wages
The Romanian Magistrates’ Association (AMR) is to decide the stand they will take on the measure to reduce wages and pensions, a measure which affects both active and retired magistrates. Judge Mona Pivniceru, chair of AMR, stated for daily ‘Gandul’: “We brought up this problem in the Board and we are waiting for a reaction from the local branches. It is only afterwards, by next week probably, that we may take a stand.”Pivniceru added that, “In theory, recession is not a time to draw up new laws, but to try to boost the economy. Even if state employees were no longer paid at all, the problem of recession would still not be solved. It’s no use reducing wages and pensions, if you don’t produce anything, if you don’t bring any money back in the purse. Therefore, this is not the economic solution to recession.”
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