The “Romanian Lottery” National Trade Union announces that it rejects the reduction by law of the rights of the company's employees and will use all legal levers, including the general strike, to defend them.
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From the trade union point of view, all necessary efforts were made to exempt the Romanian Lottery from the provisions of Law 296/2023, a law by which the rights of employees, negotiated and established by the collective labor contract, are diminished. Thus, as a result of this law and the measures of additional taxation of meal vouchers and holiday vouchers, the incomes of employees decrease by more than 10%. Adding the effect of inflation on wages, it results in a decrease of real net incomes by approximately 20%. We mention that the majority of CNLR employees are classified close to the national minimum wage. In the conditions of the obvious degradation of the incomes of its members, the Union made a series of steps, which remained without result. Concretely, since the appearance of the law 296/2023 until now countless approaches have been made to the management of the unit, to the Ministry of Economy – tutelary body, the Ministry of Finance and even to Mr. Prime Minister, Marcel Ciolacu, without receiving any concrete answer so far, other than the assurance of the Minister of Economy and Entrepreneurship and Tourism, Mr. Ştefan-Radu Oprea who, by his own signature, informed us by address 1798/16.02.2024 that, “through the reorganization of the company (decided to enter into force on 01.04.2024) no right of the employees contained in the Collective Agreement will be diminished of Labor, in force. This situation is flagrantly contradicted by the draft Revenue and Expenditure Budget of CNLR-SA/2024. From the information obtained unofficially, although, according to the law, the representative union had every right to obtain it officially, the company having the obligation consultation and information, the budget includes a 50% reduction in the value of meal vouchers and the value of holiday vouchers. In these conditions, in the absence of immediate and concrete measures to change, the Romanian National Lottery Union appeals to all forms of legal protest for the defense the rights of our members, going as far as a general strike.
