By Lizzy Ioannidou
The transport minister was scrambling on Saturday night to avert bus strikes in Limassol, Paphos and Larnaca threatened for Monday that could affect 10,000 public transport users mainly students, pensioners and tourists.
Transport Minister Vassiliki Anastassiadou chaired a two-hour meeting with company officials and employees that ended shortly before 8pm but the employees were not persuaded to withdraw the threat.
The remaining three public bus companies – Osel in Nicosia, Osea in the Famagusta district, and Intercity – have expressed their willingness to also take action depending on developments.
More meetings will take place today, the ministry said. “The ministry… is making every effort to reach agreements with Emel in Limassol and Zenon in Larnaca to continue the provision of public transport services,” a statement said. The strikes if they go ahead would begin from 6am Monday.
Earlier Saturday, according to the Cyprus News Agency, Zenon announced it would be suspending operations completely as of Monday, shortly after employees at Emel and Paphos’ Osypa threatened strike action because they had not been paid for November.
“Regarding Zenon, the company informed the finance ministry it will not suspend operations as reported and that it intends to continue consultations with the finance ministry.
The president of the Zenon board Loukas Louka told CNA on Saturday that “the company cannot cope with its current obligations”. Later he told the news agency the company did not suspend operations.
“We say that with the money the state gives us we are unable to pay our staff and our suppliers.”
Earlier in the month, public transport companies said that they were facing closure if the government deducted substantial amounts from the monthly subsidy payments made to them, after it was announced that the state would recover the around €25m owed to it by the companies.
According to Loukas, “the company’s expenses until December 31 reach €1.844m. After being informed, the members of the board of directors unanimously decided that the company cannot continue and asked that the unions are informed of this.”
The strike is in response to employees not receiving their November wages. Employees are also asking for the return of their collective agreement. The strike was announced after earlier meetings between all sides failed.
“From Monday we are ready to strike,” one bus driver told Cybc’s main news bulletin on Saturday night. “We want out salaries and our 13th salaries.”
Another said: “We want to be paid on time. Wages are wages”.
Transport ministry spokesman Demetris Constantinou told the Sunday Mail: “We can’t force them not to strike though we will try to resolve the matter so as to avoid Monday’s action.”
Anastassiadou had said previously the government must reclaim the money owed by the bus companies following a ruling of an independent arbitration committee that was tasked about a year ago to weigh in on the matter.
A representative of Emel told Phileleftheros newspaper Saturday that the company was unable to pay wages despite all its efforts, since the repayments estimated by the ministry are eight times higher than those estimated by the arbitration committee, while Louka from Larnaca’s Zenon told the paper that the cuts have left the company not only unable to pay wages, but also unable to function.
The government and the six public transport companies had agreed to seek the input of the committee about a year ago following disagreements as to the amount owed to the state from overpayments to the bus companies.
Last March, the transport ministry said that all bus companies had received overpayments. The biggest chunk of overpayments made resulting from setting high the cost per kilometre for which the companies receive a government subsidy, was between 2010 and 2014.
The contracts between the government and public transport companies expire in July 2020. The transport ministry is to announce within the coming weeks a new, international tender competition, for the new contracts which will be in effect from August 2020.
Bus drivers in all districts have gone on several strikes in recent years over late payment of salaries, as a result of the financial disagreements between their employers and the government.
