Romanian newspapers on Tuesday debate the repercussions and proportions of a general strike taking place in the public sector today, try to identify how neighboring Bulgaria deals with the crisis, relate how members of the governing party are dropping membership in favor of businesses and provide a case study on how a politican can dodge conflicts of interests.
Evenimentul Zilei reads that a strike announced for Tuesday by personnel of the Bucharest subway, in solidarity with a general strike of public sector employees, may be a preview for an undetermined lock down of subway traffic.
The paper says that subway trade union members are decided to stop activity for an undetermined period should the government decide to cut salaries in state-controlled companies, which includes subway operator Metrorex, as it has already announced such measures for the public sector. And the paper points out links between subway trade union leaders and politicians in the opposition.
The strike today is a continuation of a strike launched on Monday in many public institutions. Adevarul reads, however, that so far the strike is not such a big fuss as halting work did not bring Romania to a halt, nor did it revive the trade union movement in Romania, as union leaders have hoped. And it points out that only some 400,000 state employees of an announced total of 1 million were on strike on Monday.
Gandul sees the first day of strike as a fiasco, at least at Bucharest level. It reads that the only town hall to have closed doors was the Bucharest District 4 town hall, where the only employees working were those in the Deceased registration department. And it reports that in other town halls the strike only meant people wearing hand bands and posting banners across the offices. About the same happened in schools, in public transport and other services
