Hourly paid government employees marched from the finance ministry to the presidential palace on Wednesday morning chanting slogans including ‘No to Starvation Salaries’ and ‘End the Mockery, we are not Second-Class Workers’.
The workers, who started a 24-hour strike at midnight, gathered at 10am at the finance ministry and marched to the presidential palace where they handed over a memorandum to the president, requesting his intervention in an agreement on salaries and working conditions, in the framework of negotiations to renew their 2025-2027 collective agreement.
The strike, organised by trade unions SEK, PEO and Deok, will end on Wednesday night at midnight.
The trade unions said that over the past 17 years the hourly paid workers received salary increases of just 1.5 per cent.
They are demanding that the salary increases be paid retrospectively from January 1, 2025.
Workers on strike included skilled technicians, antiquity maintenance employees, builders, drivers, transport supervisors, cleaners, health workers, forest firefighters and lifeguards.
SEK representative Giorgos Constantinou spoke to the strikers outside the presidential palace, pointing out that this was the first time in the history of the Republic of Cyprus that the hourly paid workers had gone on strike.
“We are demanding pay rises. It is unacceptable that the government should be treating the hourly paid staff unfairly,” he said.
Stavros Andreou from PEO said the unions were demanding “political decisions that will allow the workers to live in dignity”.
“We are being paid the minimum wage,” he said and explained that 30 per cent of the hourly paid government workers were being paid up to €1,500.
On behalf of Deok, Andreas Antoniou said “we receive low salaries, we cannot meet our needs with our wages.”
“The country has one of the highest growth rates in Europe,” Antoniou said, adding that this should be reflected in salaries.
In their memorandum delivered to the president, via government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis, the workers are calling for his intervention to facilitate the renewal of their collective agreement.
Letymbiotis, who received the memorandum after the cabinet meeting, said the government had proved over the past three years that it was dedicated to improving working conditions and salaries.
He particularly referred to the cost of living allowance, tax reforms and 1.5 per cent salary increases for all workers in the public sector.
“The dialogue continues,” he added.
Commenting on remarks by Finance Minister Makis Keravnos that the demands put forward were not totally justified and implementing them would cost over €50 million, Letymbiotis said pay rises alone would cost around €30 million.
“These amounts cannot be considered negligible, they are high sums that must be taken into account in connection with the rest of the civil service and the salaries, as well as the capabilities of the state,” he added.
They point out that their wages are lower than those of respective jobs in the private sector and that demands for salary increases were submitted last year in April.
Andreou said Lebymbiotis promised to deliver their demands to the president and finance minister.
He said the unions would give some time for the government to process the memorandum and, “if we do not receive a positive reply, if the window of dialogue does not open with the president’s intervention, we will reconvene and reply in a more dynamic, massive and possibly different way.” Constantinou and Antoniou echoed this position and expressed hope an agreement would be reached soon.
Workers explained that they cannot live on €1,000 a month, as expenses far exceeded this amount.
Even those who had been working for 40 years spoke of “starvation salaries” and being unable to cover basic needs.
One of the lifeguards on strike said they were the worst off, as they were on six-month contracts without any benefits, such as provident funds.
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