Union says civil servants ‘under attack’ in pay rise debate

Trade union Pasydy on Wednesday said civil servants are “under attack” as the debate regarding a planned pay rise rumbles on.

They said the agreement they had reached with the government for an across the board 1.5 per cent pay rise came about “as the result of consultation between the trade union movement and their employer” – the government.

This increase, they said, “takes into account the budgetary and economic data and the course of the economy between 2022 and 2024” and also included an “explicit commitment” that civil servants would not demand another across the board increase in 2025.

They added that the 1.5 per cent increase is “the least the government can do for civil servants”, who, they said, accepted pay cuts and reductions in other work benefits during the financial crisis which hit Cyprus at the start of the last decade.

They claimed that the total loss incurred by civil servants due to this cut is now worth between €2.5 billion and €3 billion between 2011 and 2024.

“The responsibility civil servants showed should not be taken as a weakness,” they said, adding that claims the civil service’s payroll increased by 40 per cent between 2017 and 2024 are “misleading”.

Rather than outright increases, they said, the increase in the civil service’s payroll came about as the result of “restorations” of salaries and other benefits between 2021 and 2023, which had been cut a decade earlier.

“We call on the parliamentary parties to show in practice their respect for labour institutions and to vote the bill submitted by the finance ministry as it currently stands.”

The bill was the subject of a heated debate at the House finance committee on Monday, with trade union Sek representative Andreas Elia saying parliament could put at risk “the system of labour relations that has been in place for decades” if they did not vote for it.

Disy MP and former Finance Minister Harris Georgiades took umbrage at Elia’s comments, saying parliament’s job is not to unquestioningly rubberstamp government decisions.

If passed, the pay rise will be applied to all public sector workers, including those working in the police, the fire brigade, the military, and public schools.

The increase will also cover the judiciary and the attorney-general, but will not apply to the president, ministers, MPs, mayors, or any other state officials.