Trade Union Federation of Transport and Road Workers ask the authorities to make more efforts to combat informal economy

The Council of the Trade Union Federation of Transport and Road Workers from the Republic of Moldova (FSTD) noted a decrease in the living standards of workers and the presence of wage debts in the enterprises of the sector.

Met on Thursday, 3^rd of March, during the plenary of FSTD trade unionists have expressed concern that there is a lack of coordination of actions between the social partners on various aspects regarding the activity of road and transport workers, which discredits the social dialogue and the process of collective bargaining.

“FSTD disapproves the practice of receipt of decisions by various ministries in their own interests and to the detriment of road and transport workers, such as a change of license plates, documents and driving licenses, tax increases of Road Fund and redirect them to the local budgets and higher binding insurance by 30%,” said Boris Rojnevschi, President of FSTD.

The trade union leader said that further increases in tariffs and prices, conducted during the last years for natural gas, electricity, heating, utilities and fuel, have placed deadlocked for economic activity, greatly reducing the incomes of the employees.

Trade unionists have mentioned that due to imperfect legislation, and socio-economic situation in the country, the informal economy remains a scourge seriously affecting the branch. “The problem of illegal passenger transportation continues to grow, data on actual incomes of the drivers remain outside the statistics,” said Rojnevschi.

In this regard, the members of the Council of FSTD plead for the implementation of emergency mechanisms to combat the phenomenon of “illegal work” and practices of payment of wages “in envelopes”.

However, they require identification of sources required to eliminate wage arrears from the enterprise JS “Roads”, which have debts for January and February.

During the Plenary, trade unionists have addressed issues related to the organization of rest of employees and their children, distribution of treatment tickets, organization of trainings and recruiting new trade union members.

Trade Union Federation of Transport and Road Workers of Moldova, which has in its composition about 5000 members, is a member of the National Trade Union Confederation of Moldova and is affiliated to the International Trade Union of Transport.

Department of mass-media and international relations