Meetings were underway at the labour ministry on Friday morning over the cost of living allowance, though what fruit it was set to bear was unclear after most of the involved parties rejected the minister’s compromise proposal.
Though the initial plan was to be one joint meeting between unions, employer organisations and Labour Minister Yiannis Panayiotou, it was later decided the minister would meet employers first at 10am and unions at 11:30am.
The Employers and Industrialists Federation (OEV) is the only group to have back the proposal so far. However, speaking to the state broadcaster, its director general Michalis Antoniou said it was not a unanimous decision to support the proposal.
In fact, Thursday’s meeting where Oev members discussed the proposal was intense, and left many people disappointed.
Nonetheless, as things stand, the federation will not accept the proposal to budge by an inch, and will tolerate no compromises over it, Antoniou said.
All 13 unions on Thursday turned down Panayiotou’s mediation proposal submitted last week, which proposes renewing the 2017 interim agreement for another three years and increasing CoLA to two-thirds of the Consumer Price Index. This would mean CoLA would go up to a 66.67 per cent share from the current 50 per cent.
Sek union general secretary Andreas Matsas said that for unions to support the proposal, there must be a clear timeframe in place for when CoLA would be fully restored.
Employers organisations however are divided with the chamber of commerce (Keve) not satisfied with it despite OEV backing the minister’s mediation proposal.
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