The private sector, the one that is truly productive, will take it personally if the authorities give in to the union protests at the state-owned enterprises where layoffs are scheduled. The business community feels that granting 23 wages as a severance package is too much, a serious mistake, in fact.
"Restructuring and layoffs should have been operated long ago. The more they were postponed, the harder it is now for the workers to accept the situation. After all, if the salary taxes are so high that's because these jobs are being kept on life support. Taxes would be five times smaller if these jobs were eliminated. Otherwise, keeping these plants alive is very costly, which is in fact irrational, economically speaking," Florin Pogonaru, chairman of the Romanian Businesspersons Association (AOAR) told Ziarul Financiar.
Heavy restructuring has been operated in the past few years. The private sector was no stranger to this phenomenon, as it had to adjust to the market conditions. Romania posted an economic downturn in 1997-2000, which led to significant effects. Private companies such as Terapia, Sicomed, Policolor, Ursus, Coca-Cola, GlaxoSmithKline, Rompetrol and many others had to resort to massive downsizing and even close down some plants. For instance, beer maker SAB last year shut down its Ursus beer plant in Ploiesti. Terapia laid off half of its employees. Some 40% of Policolor workers were let go, while Coca-Cola closed down its Brasov-based factory. The same happened to GlaxoSmithKline, which had to let go of its production unit in Ploiesti. However, there are private enterprises that were not able to provide severance packages.
The employees of these companies did not resort to street protests, they did not block any roads and they did not ask for several compensatory wages, as the Brasov union members are doing now.
"In my opinion, the normal number of compensatory salaries is 10-12. The Government's suggestion of 24 is a lot, while the 36 asked by the union members is huge. Severance payments are not the way to help people. The right solution lies in fiscal incentives granted to those companies creating jobs. However, these companies are affected by the fiscal pressure triggered by the loss-making state-owned enterprises. This is practically a vicious circle," says the manager of a private company that had to let some 700 employees go last year. "We should not make the same mistakes. Let's not forget the miners, who were broke several months after receiving the compensation wages from the Ciorbea Government. You can't pay a person to stay home for two or three years," the businessman added.
miruna.lebedencu@zf.ro
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