Workers at the garbage dumps in the province of Famagusta plan to hold a work stoppage on Wednesday, March 7. The work stoppage is scheduled to take place at 9 in the morning in the warehouses of the Municipality of Paralimni.
Today, about thirty workers in the garbage crews of the Municipalities of Paphos, Geroskipou and Pegeia, members of the trade unions SIDIKEK-PEO and OIO-SEK and the employees of DEOK, held joint 08:30 in the morning and for half an hour, provincial mobilizations, in order to exert pressure on all stakeholders, since recently there has been a tendency to replace the activities of Municipalities with the purchase of services from the private sector.
The trade unions OIO-SEK and SIDIKEK-PEO, with the participation of DEOK, warned - as they report - in time all the Municipalities that the substitution of permanent needs with the purchase of services conflicts with the current collective agreements, but also the relevant directives - circulars of the State.
The Regional Secretary of Paphos of SIDIKEK PEO, Dimitris Epifaniou, in his statements during the work stoppage, noted that these Municipalities, proposing their financial problems and the understaffing of the crews, due to the ban on filling vacancies, resort to purchase services as the easy way out.
The work stoppage, he added, is in two directions. On the one hand, on the part of the government, in order to lift the recruitment moratorium so that the Municipalities can hire staff and man the garbage collection crews and, on the other hand, towards the Municipalities, calling on them to stop the privatization effort, but also refresh their fleets so that the garbage collection service can work smoothly.
Moreover, Marios Filippidis, a representative of SEK, stated that the 30-minute protest stance concerns the issue of privatization of garbage, adding that a nationwide work stoppage, lasting thirty minutes, will follow in all the Provinces, on a different day.
He added that the main reason is that the Municipalities, citing the lack of staff and other reasons, are proceeding with the privatization of the garbage dumps instead of staffing the fleets so that the citizens can be better served.
The first protest, he continued, took place for half an hour, but then, if further developments took place, the measures may be intensified.
Andreas Diogenous, on behalf of the DEOK Trade Union, stated that today's work stoppage took place as a sign of protest against the effort made by some Municipalities to stop the garbage trucks. Mr. Diogenous said that the work stoppage is warning and lasts half an hour.
As part of the work stoppage, the trade unions SIDIKEK-PEO and OIO-SEK approved a resolution that was read to the workers.
It is noted that a protest rally has already taken place in Larnaca, while a work stoppage is expected to take place on 27.2.2018 at 10:00, at the site despite the new GSP in Nicosia, in Famagusta in the warehouses of the Municipality of Paralimni, on 7.3.2018 at 09: 00 in the morning, and in Limassol on 28.2.2018, at 14:00, in the warehouses of the Municipality of Limassol.
Source: KYPE