Buses strike spreads to Limassol

By Evie Andreou

EMPLOYEES of the Limassol public bus company EMEL, announced on Thursday they will go on a 24-hour strike next week, demanding that their employers restore their reduced benefits according to their original employment contracts.

In a joint announcement, the two trade unions PEO and SEK said that the company did not keep its end of the bargain as regards the labour agreement dating back to 2014, according to which the employees had agreed to temporary concessions on their salaries and benefits, under the conditions that they were to be restored in 2016.

“The agreement expired on December 31, 2015 and the company had the obligation to restore all cutbacks and return to the original contracts,” the announcement said.

The unions said that efforts for the restoration of the benefits began in October, but that they were not successful, thus January’s paycheque continued with the reduced benefits. They also urged the company to return to its employees back pay of the benefits in a bid to avert the announced strike.

SEK’s Limassol district secretary Yiannis Tsouris told the Cyprus News Agency that in the case the transport ministry or EMEL take the initiative to resolve the issue, they will reconsider their decision, otherwise, they will proceed as planned.

The EMEL strike follows similar action by the drivers of Larnaca’s bus company Zenon, who too are demanding that their salaries and benefits are restored according to their original contracts.

The nearly 100 bus drivers of Zenon, who went on strike on Monday, extended their strike indefinitely on Wednesday, after a meeting with the transport ministry failed to resolve the issue.

The head of the House Transport committee, Antonis Antoniou, said that Zenon’s issue is to be discussed either by his committee or by the House labour committee, or jointly by both.

Transport minister Marios Demetriades told MPs that he informed all bus companies that the law provides for regular salaries, restored to the normal rates, for 2016, for civil servants and for companies whose more than 50 per cent revenues come from state funding.

Zenon, Demetriades said, is 90 per cent state-funded. He added however, that the issue is between the company, the unions and its employees.

 

 

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