The Independent Guild of Public Employees of Cyprus (ASDYK) states that it places high on its priorities the improvement of the position of employees in the combined scales A2-A5-A7, considering that they are among the most unfairly treated in the public sector and reiterates its proposal to restore the loss of wages in order to "remove the injustice against thousands of employees whose salaries are around €1000-€1300 per month".
A statement from the guild notes that the drastic increase in the prices of essential goods and energy advocate and necessitate the need to consider this proposal.
It recalls that in two letters to the Ministry of Finance (25.11.2021 and 2.5.2022) submitted the request to upgrade these scales, noting that due to the five-year freeze on annual increments, employees have lost a significant portion of their compensation that they will never receive retroactively.
In the second letter, the ASDYK noted that "as a large group of officials remain stuck in the A2 grade and to move up to the A5 grade, it will take 18 years (13 grades + 5 years of freezing) and a total of 26 years to move up to A7 in the current circumstances, it is proposed as a minimum support measure that officials be promoted from A2 to A5 when they reach the lowest step of A5 (in 14 years, including the 5-year freeze) and from A5 to A7 when they reach the lowest step of A7, i.e. in 22 years, including the 5-year freeze.
The proposal, the statement continues, was rejected by the Ministry of Finance without prior consultation, arguing that it was based on the strength of public finances. "In this regard, we refer to an announcement by the Statistical Service which states that the growth rate of the Cypriot economy in the third quarter of 2022 is positive and is estimated at 5.5%, compared to the same period last year."
ASDYK says that it has presented its proposal for a salary upgrade of the A2-A5-A7 grades to the candidates for the Presidency of the Republic of Cyprus, with whom it has had meetings and, almost all of them approach it positively.
Source: CNA
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