It’s now more than three weeks since Romania’s government of ostentatiously wealthy individuals announced the most drastic cuts to public spending since the 1980s: pensions are to be cut by 15 per cent, public sector salaries by 25 per cent.
Since then, though there has been much fist-wringing and general ‘they just can’t do that’ type discussions on the country’s television news stations, there has been precious little real protest by ordinary Romanians.
Last week’s demonstration was a start, but a less than impressive one. Besides the fact that attendance fell way short of the promised 60,000, the whole thing was less a revolution and far more lots of people standing around waiting for something to happen. As believers in the old dictum ‘start your own revolution and cut out the middle man’ we think far more direct action is needed.
Like a big, proper, naughty, in-your-face strike.
So we were thrilled to discover yesterday that on June 1st we will get one. Both the Bucharest metro and the city’s surface public transport workers will that day come out on strike.
If the strikes go ahead (and we can expect the government to try and have the strikes declared illegal) they will be perhaps the most damaging strikes in Bucharest’s history: not in our memory have workers of both the RATB (the city’s surface transport company) and Metrorex (the city’s metro system operator) will strike on the same day.
Expect total paralysis.
And the chaos will not end there.
Such is the revoltion of ordinary Romanians at these savage (and unnecessary: the IMF suggested putting up taxes, not chopping salaries and pensions) cuts that you have to wonder where it indeed will end.
With the 20th anniversary of the Mineriada approaching, are we about to see similarly violent clashes between a grass-roots protest movement and a president/government hell-bent on preventing genuine change in Romania?
Batten down the hatches. It could be a long, hot summer.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I bought 5 smoke-screen grenades from the U.S. – you know, the type used by SWAT teams.
I also bought a hood to cover my face and learned how to make Molotov Cocktails.
Also I’ve been looking over live footage from the 1999 mineriad so as to raise my spirit.
I can say I’m well prepared for a revolution. Now I’m just waiting for it to happen
P.S.: told you about the battle of Orgreave, you can’t compare it to Costesti. At Costesti there were 20.000 miners vs. 6000 police, the miners were armed and using paramilitary tactics, they captured 1500 policemen and jandarms including the Prefect of Valcea county, Nicolae Curcaneanu, while the General leading the police force fleed in the trunk of a car…
Also Miron Cozma’s syndicate numbered 47.000 miners which I believe is more than Scargill’s syndicate in the U.K. at that time.
Miron Cozma should be regarded as the most influential union leader in the history of unions worldwide.
The NUM had more than 100,000 miners before the strike. Scargill was a poor leader, but he (and the miners) were badly let down by the British left which abandoned them.
I do not think we will see trouble though. This is not France. People are too passive: the mamaliga does not melt, remember?
The unions are the playthings of the PSD, and not at all what Romania’s working class needs.
True, I browsed the NUM website in detail, it was a very strong syndicate.
And unfortunately I don’t think we will see trouble either… a fat rat doesn’t fit through its hole anymore, people had been living good lives in the past decade in Romania, they forgot how a protest should be.
It would be very good if the unions were the playthings of PSD but unfortunately I don’t believe they [still] are because otherwise they wouldn’t have been lied over and over again by Basescu and Boc.
Poor Romanians, if they revolt against the state they are uncivilized savages, if they don’t – they are “testosterone filled pathetic Romanian males.”.
Anyway, I still hope the actions taken will be pretty different from what is discussed right now. It’s a standard strategy: give a sentence to death just so that when you commute the sentence to hard labor it will seem like a blessing. I would bet for a 15% salary decrease, no pension decrease and increase of TVA and income tax.
In the end the system is in such bad shape because of the politicians we all put into place so it’s normal that all should shoulder the burden.
The money will not stop disappearing until the political/administrative system is completely transparent and under society’s control… unfortunately for this to happen the people should actually take part into the society, which will take some more time.
I beg to differ…,
not much is going to happen in the first instance, perhaps we’ll witness some movement in a few months from now.
You fail to notice that the people in government and the wealthy elite associated with it are aspirational status figures for these wretched souls (millions who voted for them). People like Elena Udrea or Elena Basescu are intensely admired and followed by legions of young and middle age Romanian voters of both sexes. People like Adriean Videanu or Prigoana are the equivalent of Richard Branson for a majority of the testosterone filled pathetic Romanian males.
These ‘leaders’ are seen as demi-gods by a relative majority of Romanians and it is very hard for them to readjust that image into a more down to earth, ‘king without clothes’ reality. They have started only in the last few weeks to slowly realise that the economic crisis is real and the ‘good people’ in government are just the scum of the earth, as many among the voting hoi polloi multitude are as well.
That change of vision and readjustment of attitudes is going to take a while… During that process, the protest scene in Bucharest and the rest of Romania will be a pathetic jamboree of people who are more worried about not getting rich over the night from property transactions as their idols in government did before them.
This time after reading this blog for a long time I have to comment. Valentin is correct. If this measures had been suggested in France there would have been riots already. Here nothing.
Not exactly. Just saying that I do not see this ending well for anybody. And all so unnecessary: the National Bank is sitting on billions in euros, then there is the €1.4 billion the government is spending on a few crappy, second hand US fighter jets…
sounds like you looking for a fight Craig