Public transport strike in Bulgaria’s capital Sofia drags on

The May 14 public transport strike in Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia – involving buses, trolleybuses and trams but not the metro underground railway – was continuing in the late afternoon, for several hours beyond its previously announced ending time.

Organisers of the strike have threatened that it may continue on May 15 and even beyond that.

On May 14, the Metropoliten company issued a statement that metro trains were operating normally and would continue to do so in coming days. In the absence of motor vehicle public transport, large numbers of Sofians used the metro, with Metropoliten providing extra trains and shortening intervals between trains.

The strikers are demanding a pay increase of 400 leva a month this year, 500 leva next year and 600 leva in 2017. Sofia municipality has pointed to a lack of funds to pay for such increases, and to the series of large pay increases in recent years.

The May 14 strike was extended several times, with the strikers demanding talks with Sofia’s authorities.

Alexander Shopov, head of the Federation of Transport Unions in the Confederation of Bulgarian Trade Unions (CITUB), told Radio Sofia: “The only thing that the persistence of the Ministry of Finance and the mayor of Sofia has led to is that the workers are angrier than in the morning and have already started to comment on how they will organise themselves to block the entrances to the garages tomorrow as well.

“We have been insisting since the morning, since last month, for a meeting, we have had no understanding from either the ministry or the municipality,” Shopov said.

Todor Kapitanov, vice-president of CITUB, told reporters on May 14: “What will happen in the coming weeks, if we are not heard, is an effective strike and then all public transport will be blocked, not just for a few hours, like now”.

Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova, of Boiko Borissov’s GERB party, criticised Sofia mayor Vassil Terziev, of the We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria coalition.

Speaking in the morning of May 14, Petkova said that it was the responsibility of the mayor of Sofia to take the necessary steps to determine and ensure the financing for the salaries of Sofia public transport employees.

In response, Ivan Vassilev, Sofia deputy mayor in charge of finance, said that Petkova’s statement was incorrect.

“Salaries in transport companies are within the competence of their management and the Sofia municipal council as the principal of the companies – not the mayor of Sofia municipality,” Vassilev said.

“In the budget of Sofia municipality, subsidies and compensations to the Central Transport Corporation are calculated correctly – 143 million leva under European regulation and 47.6 million leva for preferential cards

“Regarding the publicly circulated data on the so-called ‘transitional balance’ by the Minister of Finance, I express my surprise that the minister does not distinguish between the transitional balance and the balance in the accounts of Sofia municipality. This raises serious concerns in whose hands the state finances are entrusted,” he said.

(Photo: Sofia municipality)

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