NO EMPLOYER can afford to give wage rises under the current economic situation, the head of the employers and industrialists federation said yesterday, defending a circular suggesting an across-the-board freeze on salaries, and suspending wage indexation for this year.
The chamber of commerce and industry (KEVE) and the employers and industrialists federation (OEV) have suggested to their members they impose a moratorium in 2013 to minimise the risk to businesses.
“It is necessary to seriously come to an adjustment based on the new state of affairs on how businesses can work,” KEVE said in an announcement.
KEVE called on businesses to discuss and agree on any measures necessary to secure viability.
Unions, and ruling party AKEL, have condemned the decision but OEV head Michalis Pilikos said yesterday that businesses were simply not in a position to offer wages rises this year.
“We are in a state of emergency, in a very bad financial state, and we’re doing whatever possible to firstly keep businesses going, and secondly to maintain jobs,” he said.
The indebted state sector has already imposed wage cuts this year as part of a government agreement with their international lenders. Although wages in the private sector are significantly lower as a rule, many businesses have already cut or frozen wages since the crisis began.
“We can’t continue behaving as if nothing is going on,” Pilikos said referring to redundancies and businesses shutting down.
The unions have hailed social dialogue, cohesion and collective agreements as “the ultimate goods,” he said, adding that they seemed to be on a “different wavelength”.
The head of union SEK Nicos Moyseos said that OEV was sending a message of disrespect to social dialogue and was demolishing the foundations of labour relations.
AKEL leader Andros Kyprianou said he was “condemning with every fibre of (his) being” the one-sided decision that tells workers that employers can do whatever they want.
Labour minister Sotiroulla Charalambous asked employers to avoid taking action that disrupted peace, urging all parties to respect social dialogue and labour relations.
Meanwhile, construction workers are continuing their indefinite strike with the unions saying employers are pushing people to joblessness, hiring cheap hands over the unionised workers who are protected by collective agreements. Costas Roushias, of the federation of building contractors, said it was hard to discuss anything while banners were up and workers striking. But left-wing PEO union’s, Michalis Papanicolaou, said the contractors had shot down all their proposals. “Stop firing people and hiring cheap labour to replace them,” he said.
And workers in the hotel industry are in the process of discussing their collective agreements and warning they would not accept wage cuts or changes in the terms of their employment.
