SINSB's Iliescu: New freezing of statisticians' salaries is actually a cut, in the year with the census

The freezing of the salaries of the employees of the National Institute of Statistics (INS) in the current year, by not applying the increases provided by the salary law, is actually the equivalent of a cut of their salaries, in the year in which the INS employees will participate in the population census, the head of the Trade Union of the National Institute of Statistics Bucharest (SINSB), Dan Iliescu, told AGERPRES on Thursday.

"Our main claim is related to the freezing of the salary law, which basically means that the salary law will not be observed. When the salary law first appeared, in 2017, we, the INS employees, had a minimum salary level. We had four salary increases pending until 2022, while increases were frozen in 2021. We understood that we were facing a complicated situation at the national level at the time, that we were facing a pandemic, we did understand the reasons for the freeze, with all the dissatisfaction felt by the employees, whom were basically left in a position of discrimination against other employees - but now, this new freeze [in 2022, editor's note] hit us very hard. Basically, considering the salary law, this is not a freeze for us but an actual cut. If the law were to be observed, our salary level would have been much higher today, we should have benefited from a very different salary compared to what we have, which is why we see this as a cut and not a freeze," stated Dan Iliescu.

The union leader of INS Bucharest employees pointed out that the last salary increase received by statisticians was in January 2020.

Iliescu mentioned that the INS employees did not wish to reach a point when activity was disrupted, "especially in a year in which we are conducting the census of the population." "But there are data for GDP indicators, inflation, meaning the importance of our work may not be so much promoted at the institutional level, although the entire media uses INS data or Eurostat data, which are basically INS data," said Dan Iliescu.

The members of the Trade Union from the National Institute of Statistics Bucharest participate, on Thursday, in a protest rally in front of the INS headquarters.