Employees want 10% in the company

Petrom’s trade unions, led by Liviu Luca, have not given up their request to buy 10% of Petrom’s stock from the Romanian State, after the Austrians of OMV come to own the majority stake in the oil company.

“We’ve met with OMV officials and we decided to resume negotiations after August 15th. We will discuss at that date what they are going to restructure, how many people they will lay off, what compensation they are prepared to offer and what their plans are with regard to labour protection,” said Liviu Luca, chairman of Petrom’s Federation of Free Independent Trade Unions-FSLI and of the company’s Association of Employees. He also said that Petrom employees had not renounced their request to purchase 10% of the company’s stock from the state, in the wake of the sale of the majority stake to OMV.

“We want 10% of the stock. We will enter talks with the state on this issue,” the powerful trade union leader also said. The value of the stake might well go beyond 100 million dollars.

In line with the conditions set by the authorities during Petrom’s privatisation process, employees have the right to buy up to 2% of stock, at the same price as the investor, during an initial stage. During the second stage this participation can be increased to 8%. Petrom employees, led by Liviu Luca, one of the most powerful trade union leaders in Romania, at present hold between 0.5% and 1% in the stock of the company, according to the latest information available.

According to the Economy Ministry, OMV will sign the privatisation contract with Petrom by the end of next week, with the total transaction put at about 1.4 billion euros.

adrian.mirsanu@zf.ro