The Meeting from July
between the Administration and the Trade Unions
Has Improved the Previsions
of the Collective Work Contract 2001-2002

The negotiations held for two months between the administration and the trade unions in order to sign the new collective work contract, valid between June 2001 June 2002, have brought about modifications with regard to the salary grid of rail personnel, material support for holidays, improvement of the positions and handcrafts placement, as well as other advantages, aspects which we have already approached before.
Trade union leaders declared themselves almost satisfied after the first round of negotiations, being scheduled to have a new meeting for negotiations with the representatives of the administration, in November, in order to solve salary increase problem. Since June the salaries have been increased with 20%, following other increase possibilities according to the inflation recorded for the ongoing year and to the inflation targets on 2002.
Although the second "confrontation" between the administration and the trade unions was going to take place in November, the two parts have met anticipatory on July 30, meting where, besides the trade unions representatives who signed the Collective Work Contract 2001-2002, have also participated the representatives of Commercial Movement Federation (Mr. Ion Molea) and Engine Drivers Federation (Mr. Voicu Sala). In order to find out more details about this meeting we approached Mr. Gavrila Vaduva, director, who had the amiability to tell us about the problems dealt with.
"At the end of the first round of negotiation with respect to the Collective Work Contract 2001-2002, we mutually agreed that, in case of various problems related to the legislation, with the salaries raises or any kind of raises, we meet and we found a solution to solve this problem. The discussions held at the end of July have been concluded by the Additional Act no. 2688/July 31, 2001 to the Collective Work Contract 2001-2002, through which has been correlated the waging modality to certain positions (chief of district, chief of halt and other few positions) which took advantage of the appropriate salary raise. Secondly, it was aimed that from the contract to be issued more clearly the payment mode of the employees that are attending qualification courses. It was mutually established that on the period of qualification, requalification and poly - qualification courses the personnel of the company to be waged tariff salary, having tasks established by the unit or sub-unit, related to their professional qualification. Thus, in waging rights of the workers on the period of time of the qualification courses are included the basic salary according to the owned class at the admission data to the course, updating according to the indexes and raises; spore for years of service and, where is the case, the other salary spores, as those for difficult railway working conditions, damaging conditions (noxious), site conditions, which will be granted at the place of work where they develop their activity during the year. Also, for the training period through the courses will be mentioned in the work record "waged course attendant with individual work contract maintenance for the handcraft….. ", and the respective period of time is considered as years of service in the unit. Another modification was sensed in case of Article 56 (1), which will contain the following:" During the holiday the personnel will receive an increment containing the basic salary, including management increment, at the date of leaving in holiday, according to the number of holiday days, increased with the average percentage of the other salary incomes achieved as raises stipulated in Appendix 5 from the collective work contract in force and the raise for protocols, on a three months period of time worked previous leaving for holiday."
A last modification brought through this additional act to the previous previsions of the contract is the fact that we stipulated in the appendix regarding the holiday leaves certain positions previously founded, which being not mentioned in the appendix for the holiday made people benefit only of minimum of holiday, of 24 days.
All these modifications brought to the Collective Work Contract on 2001-2002, based on the Additional Act no. 2688, recorded at the General Labor and Social Solidarity Department of Bucharest District, have become valid since July 1, the current year, according to the previsions stipulated in the contract.
In the future, we propose that, together with the trade unions, to correct the previsions regarding the minimal education and probation conditions in order to occupy the positions within the company. Presently, these conditions are approved through the Decision no. 8/1998 of the administration board must be modified. Before reaching this level, we formed a few groups of specialists within the administration and together with persons assigned by trade unions we will analyze each and every position and handcraft, hoping to reach to a common point, so that in a shorter period of time to present to the administration board the new proposals in order to be approved.
The next meeting with the trade unions aiming CCM will take place between 15-30 November, in order to clear out the new waging grid, which will be valid since December 1, 2001. If till the end of the year will be forecasted that the inflation will be more increased than the raise made on June 1 and if there will be financial resources from incomes - expenses budget correction, we will solve the respective problem. In the moment when the company will meet difficulties regarding the provision of incomes and of the positive modifications of the expenses budget, there will occur some problems for sure. But, for the time being, we hope that things will be all right and we will be able to keep our word when we will meet with the trade unions for the second round of negotiations."

The Right to an Opinion ...

Railway trade unions representatives, quite satisfied by the results recorded after the first round of negotiations, have declared that in November will be solved more demands. But, let us see which are their declarations after the modifications brought to this additional act in the current collective work contract.
Ionel Socaciu, the president of National ELCATEL Federation: "In point of the modification of the calculation modality for the holiday increment I consider that this fact is benefic to all of us. Thus, starting with July this income is calculated also taking into consideration the three previous months, and all include spores. This means that the increment for the holiday that will be received by the personnel will be increased. This was a point that we motivated in our demand. I have to tell that this modification only aligns the prevision from our contract to the unique contract modifications at national level, and more, to uniform the previsions from the other contracts, because the other companies have already introduced this prevision. We have also requested the correlation and the improvement of the salary level of the information technology personnel, problem for which has been forwarded a solution for a salary stimulation and cointerest of all the positions existing within the basic units structures, regional and central. This proposal is going to be finalized, and we will present it on November 15, when we will meet the administration representatives.
Our last demand was represented by an appropriate waging of chiefs of cabinet. You do not have to think that we have a crash for them but it is not fair to "adjust" all salaries for all positions and handcrafts and to skip this position.
These problems were demanded point by point and, knowing that the additional act proposes and partially succeeded to adjust a few non-concordances within the contract, for this reason we did not raised so many proposals".
Ioan Voica, FiS M/C vice president: "Collective Work Contract 2001-2002 has been negotiated for every company apart, and not having a branch contract as base of the negotiation (as the trade unions demand for a log time), there have been some inconveniences between them, fact which brought to the conclusion of some additional acts. What we are hoping is that in November to succeed a correct negotiation, which will be in accordance with the inflation rate on the ongoing year scheduled for 2002, so that starting with January 1, 2002, the salaries of railway personnel to have an effective buying power."
Florin Dobrescu, the president of National Federation Iron Way: "First of all I have to tell that this additional act which we have just signed represents the initiative of the federation that I represent and which also has a great number of members. We noticed amazed that a quite big number of positions were affected by the percentage which was granted by signing the collective work contract. That's why we had to make the necessary pressures in order to convince the management of the company that it has to remedy this problem, because it is about positions that are in direct competition with the circulation safety and have a special importance in the maintenance activity of the tracks. By all means, some remedies will be well received and in case of other positions that are adequately place in the salary grid, but we hope that in November, when we will start again the negotiations we will be convincing enough and to obtain what we have proposed".

Oana Bran