Trade unions doubled down on Thursday, threatening possible nationwide strikes as of next week unless government mediation efforts come up with a proposal on the Cost of Living Allowance (CoLA) that is satisfactory to them.

With talks on CoLA having failed to produce agreement, Labour Minister Yiannis Panayiotou, acting as mediator, has summoned the two sides – unions and employers organisations – to a joint meeting on Friday at 4pm.

Union bosses said it was unclear whether at the meeting the minister would bring a proposal bridging the vast gap between the two camps.

“We don’t know if tomorrow’s meeting of stakeholders with the minister will be substantive and create prospects for a positive outcome,” SEK union boss Andreas Matsas told media.

“Let’s hope it’s not a simple meeting aimed at playing for time, in view of the warning measures,” he added, alluding to the threatened industrial action.

And he called on the government to make clear its position – whether it intends to adhere to the established approach to CoLA or adopt a different way of calculating the wage indexation.

“CoLA must be reinstated to 100 per cent, so that it can serve its purpose – restoring the purchasing power of wages,” Matsas said.

Likewise PEO’s Sotiroulla Charalambous spoke of a looming deadlock in the talks.

The unions have scheduled a joint meeting of their members for next Monday to decide their next course of action. This includes possibly green-lighting strike action.

For their part, organisations representing employers’ interests said the dialogue should continue.

Michalis Antoniou, the head of the Employers and Industrialists Federation (OEV) accused the unions of intransigence.

“If they open up a window for negotiations, we can have a deal in a day,” he asserted.

Employers propose that CoLA be calculated differently, rather being chiefly weighted on inflation. For example, the index should also factor in parameters like the national productivity rate, the rate of GDP growth and the unemployment rate.

Each of the parameters would have a weighting attached to it in a new CoLA formula.

In May 2023 an agreement got hammered out for a transitional arrangement setting CoLA at 66.7 per cent of inflation, with an agreement to reach a comprehensive deal on CoLA by June this year.