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It is incomprehensible how the civil servants’ union that represents about 20% of the island’s workforce, has succeeded in the past five decades to impose itself on the private sector unions, as a result of which workers in the manufacturing, tourism, agriculture and services sectors have agreed to the watered down austerity measures the government is pushing for.
This can only suggest that the leaders of the two biggest unions, PEO and SEK, must have ulterior motives so as not to look after the interests of their own members, most of whom have seen pay cuts, freezing of benefits and even layoffs.
On average, civil servants are paid nearly twice more than others in Cyprus, and enjoy generous benefits such as lower contributions to the state pension fund that is near-broke because government workers have not paid in as much over the years. Up until recently they even used to get an illogical unemployment benefit for six months upon retirement (which we never got) and received the same level of pension as the rest of us while demanding free services such as hospital care no matter what their earnings might be. On the other hand, private sector workers with an average household income of half that of civil servants are barred from free use of the hospitals. Is this fair?
Why, then, do the unions insist on supporting the demands of the civil servants? Is it just comradeship or are there other reasons? Why, too, do unions keep their membership and earnings information to themselves? On the one hand, they want to clamp down on tax dodgers (as if this alone will solve the economic crisis), but they do not preach transparency when it comes to their own money matters such as the pay scales of union workers and union assets.
Employers and unionised employees are often in conflict when it comes to the renewal of collective labour agreements, with the main argument focusing on pay hike demands on behalf of the unions and the employers demanding that these be linked to productivity. Other core issues include the abolition of the expensive cost of living allowance, as suggested by IMF and other officials over the years, but the pro-labour President Christofias has often declared he will never invade on union rights.
It’s about time that workers realised that they are being duped by the few who lead them as their interests have long been thrown out the window.
