Motion against Labour Minister: Ordinance on furlough badly written, modified six times

Social Democrats have asked, through a simple motion on Wednesday submitted to the plenum of the Senate, for the resignation of Labour Minister Violeta Alexandru, because the Ordinance No. 30/2000 on furlough and the measures related to the granting of aids to the various vulnerable categories was "so badly written" that it needed to be modified six times.

The motion, signed by 60 PSD (Social Democratic Party) Senators, was called "Stop the lady in black from the Ministry of Unemployment and Social Collapse."

"You were supposed to come up with measures that would have stopped the social degrading and material loss of the ones affected by the crisis. Your solution was called GEO 30, which was supposed to regulate furlough and also the measures related to the granting of aids to the various vulnerable categories. But the Ordinance No. 30 was so badly written that it needed to be modified six times, through successive emergency ordinances. (...) And if we stick to your own field of activity only, how do you justify that within only 60 days you needed to modify so many times a document that you yourself drafted?" reads the motion.

The PSD Senators reproach the Labour Minister that the Decree No. 240/2020 prolonging the state of emergency introduced some "legislative innovations" by several regulations related to both the labour and social protection laws.

"You introduced forced labour. (...) This is what you did by forbidding resignations during the entire period of the state of emergency, while every employee fo the state was forced, in the name of the battle against COVID-19, to see his/her unilateral decision of resignation approved only after the expiry of the emergency period. (...) With the same Decree No. 240 article 54 of the appendix you introduced another juridical innovation establishing a forced leave, by which you allowed employees to unilaterally decide to take their leave for the entire period of the state of emergency," said the Social Democrats.

They also criticize Violeta Alexandru for the manner in which she managed the situation of Romanians who left to work abroad.

"You managed very badly the situation of Romanians left to work abroad for seasonal activity in countries in the Western Europe. And when did this happen? It happened during the state of emergency when we were all banned to leave our own localities, not to mention the country," the signatories of the motion also said.