The board of the Estonian Railway Workers Trade Union is meeting on Friday to discuss the government’s plan to trim the budget of Estonian Railways and its subsidiary Elron. The board will also discuss deadlocked collective agreement negotiations with representatives of the companies.
The current collective pacts are due to expire on January 1 next year, and railway workers are considering a strike or other actions. The trade union board is considering whether it should start preparing for these processes.
Oleg Tšubarov, chairman of the rail union, said that he is disturbed by the fact that political decisions are ignoring the actual situation of companies, thus putting them in a worse and more difficult situation.
“The proposals for pay cuts and redundancies are particularly offensive given that thousands of workers in the railroad sector have been made redundant during the past 15 years,” Tšubarov says.
The labour leader also says that current wages are out of line with the level of responsibility which rail workers have in doing their work and that wages have been below cost of living increases for years.
“And yet our workers keep hundreds of people safe every day,” adds Tšubarov. “Their work is worthy of fair pay.”
Collective agreement negotiations have discussed salary increases next year, as well as better working conditions and other important issues, but the labour union says that the salary increase is justified just because of inflation in Estonia. So far meetings with company representatives have not yielded the expected results. Railway workers argue that salaries at Estonian Railways and Elron are already unacceptably now.
“The railway workers trade union will continue to protect the interests of employees until new collective agreements are signed by Estonian Railways and Elron so that peace in the labour world can be restored,” Tšubarov vows.
The trade union has more than 1,000 members.
Source: BNS
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