Electrolux strike is over

The world’s largest home appliance maker, Swedish group Electrolux, can proceed with its plans to relocate production to Romania now that the general strike started last week at its plant in Satu Mare is over. “The general strike is over now. We partially resumed production today (i.e. two days ago), after having struck a deal with the employees,” Ulrich Gartner, Electrolux Europe PR vice-president told Ziarul Financiar. This means the staff will get a 19.3% raise as offered by the management of the Satu Mare plant, although they had asked for 28% after having demanded a 42% raise at first. “Our number one priority was to have the strike ended, and now we can focus on developing the cooker production in Satu Mare,” Gartner added. He was saying at the time of the strike that the group’s decision to relocate production in Satu Mare could be reconsidered in case no agreement with the unionists was reached. The Satu Mare-based plant employees made 6.1 million ROL in average gross income a month last year, according to the unionists, while the average gross monthly salary reached 5.4 million ROL, without taking the meal tickets into account. The average gross salary in Romania reached 5.7 million ROL in November. ZF