THE FINANCE Ministry has approved an agreement with employees of the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC), averting strike action in the new year.
Union leaders and EAC administration had signed their 2001-2003 budget agreement in July, sending it to the Finance Ministry and the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism for the required approval.
But in October, the Finance Ministry determined there were some changes that needed to be made to the agreement concerning allocation of funds, said EAC spokesman Costas Gavrielides.
“It seems that the Ministry of Finance had some new ideas about the budget,” Gavrielides said.
Leaders from the four unions representing EAC employees, EPOPAI, SIDIKEK, SEPAIK and SYBAIK, met with EAC administrators Monday to urge them to take the measures necessary to have the budget approved.
A meeting between administration, the unions and the Finance Minister yesterday morning finally resulted in the finalisation of the budget.
“This should have been approved long ago; it’s long overdue,” Gavrielides said.
The agreement will be retroactively effective as of January 1, 2001. All employees who worked at EAC between that date and the present time will receive the negotiated salary increases from the last two years, Gavrielides said.
In addition to wage increases, the agreement allocates more money towards company cultural activities and reorganises elements of the company’s structure. The agreement also calls for a cost-cutting 10 per cent reduction in the number of professional engineers employed by the EAC, from 300 to 270, Gavrielides said.
“The changes all have one purpose: to make the Electricity Authority more efficient,” Gavrielides said.
The agreement will be up for renegotiation at the end of 2003.
More than 2,000 people are employed by the Electricity Authority of Cyprus. By the end of 2003 the number of consumers connected to the EAC network is expected to reach 428,000, compared to 333,850 at the end of 1995.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
