.
The economic crisis and having to deal with the reality of the aftershocks were supposed to have helped change the selfish attitudes of all Cypriots, making us more human and a return to family values.
But the merry go round of long-winded arguments have proven that attitudes die hard in Cyprus, especially if they are driven by arrogant and ignorant people.
The two biggest trade unions, the civil servants’ Pasydy and the bank employees’ Etyk, have failed to see the big picture and have resorted to looking only after their own, with nobody having the guts to stand up to rampant trade union abuses.
The public workers have not realised that “less government” does not mean “working less hours” but rather a smaller, leaner and more efficient government machine.
On the other hand, the voluntary redundancy scheme at the Bank of Cyprus and the haggling by Etyk leaders for increased benefits served only the interest of the few who could afford to quit and should not have been working in the banks in the first place. Those who remain have to live through the violent merger that was imposed on them, with the all mighty trade union having no crisis management plan in place. In other words, post traumatic stress disorder at its best and no way to deal with it.
The Anastasiades administration has remained true to Cyprus culture: bend over backwards to take every single person’s views into account and not to upset anyone! Unfortunately, this ‘representativeness’ and false democracy gets in the way of decision-making and leads to timidity and processual constipation.
Cyprus Airways should have been wound up ages ago, Laiki ex-employees and BoC employees should have been made compulsorily redundant at statutory compensation level only and shown the door. And if attitudes don’t change at Cyta and EAC, where the 2.30pm cut-off mentality supercedes competition, then they will have to deal with redundancies too and very soon.
And while we’re at it, somebody should tell the professors at the University of Cyprus that parliament wanting better checks and balances of their funding is not a bad thing and does not mean that MPs will intervene in their daily teaching duties. We have other, more serious problems in education to deal with and can’t be bothered with the basket full of abusive articles sent out on a daily basis, full of complaints but nothing to offer as an alternative. Perhaps with their mandatory holidays around the corner, they won’t have time to write any more articles. In any case, we won’t print them.
