A march beginning from the headquarters of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB) in the central Macedonia Square here marked Thursday a CITUB national protest against the government's proposed pension reform.

CITUB protested against the government's unclear plans to increase the requisite insured length of service and retirement age for the general category of workers and against the lack of clarity as to whether the transitional period for early pensioning of certain categories of workers will be extended until 2014 as the labour organization demands.

Speaking at a news conference Wednesday, CITUB Vice President Plamen Dimitrov stated that protest actions would be called off only on signing a protocol of agreement with the government.

Employers disagreed with the CITUB demands and said Wednesday that at this point they were withdrawing from the discussions with the National Council for Tripartite Cooperation.

Leading the protest march were workers from the mining industry as they will be the worst affected by the planned reforms, according to CITUB. The protesters were carrying transparents and posters that read "Today a protest, tomorrow a strike", "We won't pay other people's mistakes from our pensions", "We don't want any pension reform that curtails our rights", "Gentlemen in the government, the crisis will pass, people will stay, think about them!" and "We don't want to work all our lives for miserable pensions".

Social Minister Totyu Mladenov said that the new suggestions for revisions of the Social Security Code will be introduced only with a consensus. The decision will be aimed in support of measures in the pension system benefiting the people. Work is beginning this very day and there will be some ready variant of amendments probably by Monday, the minister added.

It is important to be together with trade unions and employers in the implementation of social policy, the minister said, adding that he expected employers to return to the Tripartite Council for the pending discussions of two important bills - the public social insurance budget and the Social Insurance Code.

Representatives of CITUB and Mladenov later conferred with National Assembly Chair Tsetska Tsacheva. The collected 200,000 signatures under CITUB's protests and a declaration in the name of the trade union were also handed over formally.

Before the meeting Mladenov said the incumbent are mulling to begin increasing the insured length of service possibly from 1012, and that gradually by 3 to 4 months a year, within 8 to 10 years. This can become a fact if agreement with the social partners is reached, he specified.

"We shall see what the calculations are, we will probably meet somewhere and we are very close to signing an agreement," CITUB Vice President Ivan Kokalov commented. In his words, this is the field in which there can be compromise, but for the special category workers concessions in respect to retirement are impossible.

The draft protocol of agreement states that the vesting period will increase as of 2016, but there are still unclear points on this measure, as well as on the extension of the transition period for retirement of special category workers and employees until 2014. That was also why the signing of the memorandum was put off, which in turn occasioned the protest in spite of the withdrawal of the revisions to the Social Insurance Code from Parliament.

CITUB expressed hope that the protcol of agreement will be completed in the next few days with the signature of the Prime Minister, which will also put an end to the protest actions. Otherwise these will develop into effective full-time strike actions, the trade union added.

On Tuesday the social partners agreed that the bill amending the Social Insurance Code will be withdrawn from the National Assembly for reconsideration by the National Council for Tripartite Cooperation. By October 19, it will be laid before the Council of Ministers and then will be submitted to Parliament.

Source: BTA