Trade Unions - new method of calculating the minimum living level will affect the citizens’ social protection

The Confederation of Trade Unions of the Republic of Moldova (CSRM) considers that applying the new Regulation approved by the Government regarding the calculation method of the minimum living level will worsen the citizens’ social protection and negatively influence the process of setting minimum social guarantees, such as: the minimum salary and pension, scholarships, allowances and other social payments. The trade unionists disapproved the recent adoption of the above-mentioned Regulation, in a note addressed to the Government. They draw attention to the fact that the document does not include anything new regarding the way of setting the normative and calculating the minimum living level of the population. CSRM mentions that many issues which are still creating discordances between the real needs of citizens in order to ensure the minimum living level and those proposed by the Executive are still unsolved. According to the cited sources, it is unfair to make the calculation of the minimum living level on the ground of the information resulted from the surveys of the budgets of the households, as „the consumption of the households depends on the welfare of each of them, and in the situation of a continuous poverty, people keep on spending less for certain strictly necessary goods and services,” according to the release. The trade unions note that the amount of the minimum living level shall be established in the light of certain food goods, non-food goods and services, based not on the existent consumption, but on scientifically based norms reflecting the real needs of the population. According to trade unionists, even though the Government says that the energy value of the consumption basket has increased, pursuing the Regulation, de facto the average norms for the majority of food goods included in population’s consumption were reduced (wheat bread consumption was reduced by 47.6%; beef – by 189.5%; pork – by 119.0%; milk – by 98.3%; potatoes – by 13.8%; vegetables – by 18.8%; fruit and berries – by 100.6%). Also, the doubling of the consumption norm for poultry and the inclusion of sour milk goods cannot replace the reductions operated to traditional goods and to which the majority of the population has access, the trade unionists mention. In the letter addressed to the Government, CSRM regrets the fact that the Government continues to adopt normative acts that influence the social-economic interests of workers without taking the opinion of the social partners into account. CSRM required that the Government fasten the improvement of the draft law for the minimum living level, which has been discussed for the last 6 years. The trade unionists consider that only this will set the main instrument of appreciating the population’s living standards, and help with the drafting of measures regarding the social protection of citizens, as well as the justification and setting of the minimum social guarantees. The new methodology of calculating the minimum living level was approved by the Government on August 2. The Regulation will be applied starting 2007 and will be measured once every 3 months. In 2005, the minimum living level was of 766 lei. The minimum wage in the real sector of the economy is, starting July 1, 700 lei, in micro-enterprises and for employees in agricultural enterprises -550 lei, and for public units - 400 lei.