Moldovan trade unions demands that government urgently new quantum of minimum salary on economy

Chisinau, 18 April /MOLDPRES/ - The National Trade Unions Confederation (CNSM) has demanded that government approves urgently a new quantum of minimum salary on the economy, depending on the economic conditions and the level of average salary on the economy.    

At a today’s news conference, CNSM head Oleg Budza said that the members of the General Council had approved a declaration to this effect at a meeting on 14 April.  

According to Budza, the low level of wage payment remains one of the most acute problems in Moldova. “Although a draft decision was worked out on the way the minimum salary on the economy is established and its increase depending on level of the average salary on the economy, the draft’s approval is procrastinated. Trade unionists ask the cabinet to speed up the enforcement of this document and include the financial resources needed for the decision’s implementation in the 2016 state budget,” the CNSM head noted.

The CNSM representatives said the minimum wage on the economy had not been changed since October 2014, when it was established at 1,000 lei. “The social and economic evolution had negative consequences on the living standards and the purchasing power of the wage earners’ incomes. The consumer price index rose by 116.9 per cent, the subsistence minimum grew by 6.6 per cent, and the minimum salary on the economy covers as little as 57.6 per cent of the subsistence minimum,” CNSM said.      

According to the forecast of macroeconomic indicators, in 2016, the inflation’s annual average will stay stand at 111.4 per cent, and will exceed the increase in the nominal salary on the economic, that will be of 109.8 per cent; this means that the citizens’ real incomes will drop in continuation. At the same time, the minimum guaranteed quantum of the salary in the real sector is scheduled to increase up to 2,100 lei this year; if the present size of the minimum wage on the economy is maintained, a two-fold discrepancy between the minimum guarantees in the real sector and the budgetary one will appear, Oleg Budza also said.    

For his part, CNSM deputy head Sergiu Sainciuc said that it was inadmissible to keep the present level of minimum salary close the level of the minimum pension, which amounted to 948.84 lei starting from 1 April.”The minimum salary is the lowest in Moldova, as compared to the one from the countries in the region. At the same time, the European Union’s recommendations to all countries facing a rise in unemployment and poverty is to increase the minimum salary up to the level of 60 per cent of the average wage on the economy,” Sainciuc added.  

(Reporter A. Mardare, editor L. Alcaza)