35,000 postal workers end strike in Romania after reaching pay settlement

Some 35,000 striking postal workers agreed to return to work Tuesday after reaching an agreement with management for a 4 percent wage rise.

Postal workers began what was to be a 10-day strike on Monday to demand a 16 percent wage rise, which managers and Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu said the post office could not afford.

Trade union leader Georgeta Lilian Carstea told the national Radio Romania that leaders understood it was impossible to raise salaries higher because the post office’s budget is controlled under a monitoring agreement with the International Monetary Fund.

Under the agreement, 9,200 postal employees will earn the minimum wage of 3.3 million lei (US$117, euro90) starting May 1, Carstea said.

Others will get wage hikes depending on how long they have worked for the company or meal tickets that can be used to buy food.

Other employees will get a 3 percent wage hike, Carstea said.

Another union leader, Costin Grigore, said that next week union leaders will meet with IMF officials in Bucharest to ask for the post office to be taken off the list of companies where spending is monitored by the fund.

Managing director of the post office, Mihai Toader, said he would withdraw a lawsuit against the striking workers. Employees have agreed to work the Saturday before Orthodox Easter to compensate for the one-day strike.

Union leaders had argued that the Romania Postal Service is profitable, and that their demands would have cost an extra US$8 million (euro5.9 million) this year.