Non-medical staff, eliminated from salary increases (trade union)

TESA (technical, economic, scientific, administrative) health personnel have been eliminated from the categories that will receive salary increases in 2022, after not having received any salary increases in 2021, the co-president of the Steering Committee of the Solidaritatea Sanitara Federation in Romania, Radu Vasile, told AGERPRES on Tuesday during the rally organized in front of the Government headquarters by the trade union organization, agerpres reports.

"Our main problem is the non-enforcement of Law 153/2017, on 2021 and 2022, the fact that we were not awarded the two quarters (of wage growth, ed. n.). And the greater dissatisfaction is the ordinance that was given a few days ago regarding the salary increases for the auxiliary staff in the health, from where the TESA staff was removed. TESA staff is the staff without which a hospital cannot function. Starting from plumber, electrician, economist, lawyer, engineer and so on. Not only they feel frustrated, but they feel stolen, they feel duped. The medical team is never made up of only two professional categories, doctors and nurses; the medical team consists of all the medical staff, including the nurse, the caregiver, the stretcher, the TESA staff and so on. According to the Wage Law, all employees of the system, including TESA staff (they were supposed to receive in 2022 the increases provided by law, ed.n.), but the TESA staff were eliminated. We do not have a logical explanation why they were left outside," Radu Vasile said.

The representative of the Solidaritatea Sanitara Federation said that the last salary increase granted to TESA staff was in 2020, according to Law 153, and this category does not benefit from bonuses.

Radu Vasile added that hospital unionists will hold protest actions on Tuesday during the lunch break, where possible, without interruption of work.

The union leader also pointed out that due to the low salaries, TESA staff members leave the budget system to work in the private sector.

Several dozen members of the Solidaritatea Sanitara Federation participated on Tuesday in a protest in front of the Government headquarters, demanding the granting of legitimate salary rights - the payment of the basic salary at the level provided by Law 153/2017 for 2022 for all health workers, including non-medical staff (TESA), but also the reporting of all increases to the basic salary mentioned above for all categories of salaries and the calculation of the hourly rate of on-call periods through reporting to the hourly rate of the basic salary.

The health unionists also request the recognition of the shift exchange as working time and the recognition of the additional contribution period performed by the health professionals; the renegotiation of the health-related part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) and the inclusion within it of all the action strategies set out as annexes to the collective labour agreement at sector level.

After 12:30 p.m., demonstrators are due to attend similar rallies in front of the Presidency and Parliament.