AROUND 400 CyBC staff have threatened stronger measures, following a four-hour black out on Thursday night in protest over not being paid their March wages after parliament suspended a vote approving their 2012 budget.
“We will take measures and they may be in strike form. For the moment employees will work through the weekend even though they haven’t been paid, and on Monday we’ll have a meeting at the Labour Ministry to discuss the issue,” said trade union OHO-SEK’s general secretary Andreas Elias.
Elias pointed out that not paying wages was a violation of their employment terms. “We have no other choice but to take measures,” he said, adding that it was the responsibility of the CyBC board, parliament and the government to make sure they got paid.
Head of union for CyBC employees EVRIK, Savvas Aristodemou said that the crucial day for them was next Thursday in parliament. “We believe if the head of the board doesn’t manage to persuade parliament to vote for the budget then he should resign and give the chance to the President [of the Republic] to appoint someone else,” said Aristodemou.
CyBC’s board also came under fire yesterday from politicians who wanted to see the board’s chief resign. “We’re waiting for his resignation,” said DISY deputy chairman Averof Neophytou.
EDEK’s Nicos Nicolaides said that suspension of the budget was necessary. “It happened so that next week we can have proper negotiations with the CyBC board,” he said.
DISY chief Nicos Anastassiades apologised to CyBC employees for having to pay the price for government decisions or of the CyBC’s board’s decisions.
“The issue is clearly political [and] we’ve fallen into the political game….if I‘m the problem I’ll go home tomorrow,” said CyBC chairman, Makis Symeou, responding to comments made by Neophytou.
Symeou said the broadcaster had in fact saved €11 million over the last two years, ‘or 25 per cent of the budget.’ “With a much lower budget we’ve managed to implement spending on building projects and modernisation,” he added.
Asked on the 8pm news bulletin as to whether the board was guilty of mismanagement, Symeou said: “If there was mismanagement all the cost-saving measures that I’ve been talking about would not have happened.”
“We’ve not only saved money but we’ve raised the bar and that is thanks to the CyBC’s employees and management, he said. “It is impossible without the budget to pay the wages but we’ve done all we can,” added Symeou.
Government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou called on parliament to approve the budget. Stefanou said that according to figures provided by CyBC over the last two years, state funding has been reduced from €43 million in 2010 to just over €33 million in 2012, and €1.9 million of that has been used to buy equipment for when Cyprus takes over the EU presidency.
