The employer movement in Romania still has not been able to discuss as a single voice with the authorities or the unions after fourteen years of democracy, for which reason it is unable to get its point across most of the time.
This is something the business people are not happy about, so that they are now thinking of unification more and more often.
“We are not united, we are not a force to be reckoned with in Romania and we deserve it. I am disappointed and at the same time concerned with the fate of those creating added value and jobs,” businessman George Copos said during the European Employer Confederations Forum organised by the General Union of Industrialists in Romania – UGIR 1903 on Tuesday.
Copos specified each of the almost 15 representative employer organisations points to itself as being the “most powerful” such association. “Every Government deserves the Employers Associations it gets. We have many employers associations that do not understand the need for this coagulation,” Copos said.
Economic analyst and former Finance minister Daniel Daianu in his turn said that if the employers’ associations did not set their mutual goals and acted in concert, they would subsequently fail to get their point across during their talks with the Government and with the unions.
‘The employer class will be visible and do good to this country once it has managed to articulate a position. The employers as a whole are still fragmented and have a long way to go before becoming a strong partner for talks with the unions and the Government,” Daianu said.
Florin Pogonaru, the chairman of the Romanian Business People Association (AOAR), one of the most powerful business people associations, feels a price is now being paid because of the “activism”, which is manifest in the employer movement that is not representative of employers and makes the employer movement be opportunist and inconstant in what it does. miruna.lebedencu@zf.ro