No company-paid compensations

Privatisation minister Ovidiu Musetescu feels the employees laid off by the 23 large companies on the privatisation list could not get additional compensations from their respective employers besides those stipulated in Ordinance 8/2003. “I for one think we’ll have a perverse effect if those laid off want the compensations in the employment contracts, as well, after we have moved the bill to the national budget. Those who will stay with the companies in question will have to work for those to leave,” Ovidiu Musetescu on Tuesday said. He added that all the 23 companies, for which additional incentives were granted by Ordinance 8/2003, had a difficult situation and had gone through several failed privatisation attempts. The Government is to draft an additional normative act to grant 20-24 salaries as severance pay from the state budget to those to be laid off by the 23 companies, according to Musetescu. He explained those companies could not afford to also pay the compensations in the collective employment contracts, concluded at “various points in time.” Mediafax