Councilor of Bolojan, complained to the CNCD after a statement about budget officers, in which he said they were “incompetent, thieves or crazy”. Burduja's explanation

Sebastian Burduja, honorary adviser to Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, was complained to the National Council for Combating Discrimination (CNCD) by the Government Employees' Union (SAALG), according to a statement sent by the organization on Wednesday.

The former Minister of Energy is criticized for having stated, in an interview for Adevărul, that “three types of people work in the state: incompetent people, people who supplement their incomes and crazy people”.

“Most of the time, three types of people work in the state: incompetent people, that's all they make per month, they actually deserve 1,000 euros, 800 euros, but you don't have anything to do with them, people who supplement their income from illegal sources, so thieves, because they can't live on a thousand euros, or, the third category, crazy people,” Burduja said in the interview.

“I tried to build teams of crazy people (…), because they are fair, they don't steal and they live on 800 euros, 700 euros, 1,000 euros, with huge responsibilities, out of the desire to leave something behind for Romania,” he added.

In Wednesday's press release, in which it requests Burduja's fine, SAALG claims that the statement made by the prime minister's advisor “does not represent a specific, contextual and proportional criticism, related to concrete situations, but a global, degrading and offensive labelling, addressed to a wide group of people defined by belonging to a social category (employees in the public sector)”.

SAALG denounces a “triple stigmatization”

The trade union organization claims that the statement made by the prime minister's adviser “en bloc qualifies the category as “incompetent”, inducing the idea of ​​a generalized incompetence”, and “associates the category with illicit conduct, suggesting that they “supplement their income” through illegitimate means (publicly taken as “thieves”), which is equivalent to a collective culpability”.

SAALG also says that Sebastian Burduja used “the expression 'crazy people' as an insult and a derogatory label, implicitly invoking mental health as a feature of social contempt”.

“Through this triple stigmatization, the message has the objective ability to affect the dignity of the persons concerned, to delegitimize them in the public space, to fuel social hostility and to create a degrading and offensive framework in relation to public sector employees, including in the professional environments where they interact with the public and with other socio-professional categories”, the statement also states.

The union emphasized that “using a label associated with mental health as a derogatory attribute reinforces stereotypes and prejudices about people with mental disorders or psychosocial disabilities, suggesting that “mental illness” is synonymous with social or moral inadequacy, which amplifies the stigmatization of this criterion and contributes to the creation of an offensive and degrading climate for people affected or perceived as such”.

SAALG requests the councilor to be fined

The trade union asks the Council “to establish and sanction the contraventional act consisting in harassment and discrimination through the violation of dignity and the creation of a degrading and offensive framework towards a specific social group, provided for by art. 2 para. (4) – (5) of OG no. 137/2000, in conjunction with art. 26 of the same normative act”.

SAALG requests “the application of the sanction of the contravention fine in the amount assessed by the Board of Directors, related to the seriousness and the public quality of the complained person, within the limits of art. 26 paragraph (1) of OG no. 137/2000”.

The article invoked by the organization establishes that such a contravention, of which it accuses the honorary advisor of the prime minister, “is sanctioned with a fine from 1,000 lei to 30,000 lei, if the discrimination is aimed at a natural person, respectively with a fine from 2,000 lei to 100,000 lei, if the discrimination is aimed at a group of people or a community”.

SAALG also requests “the provision of the publication in the mass media of a summary of the decision”, as well as “the provision of appropriate reparative and preventive measures (public recommendations, public retraction and clarification, non-discriminatory communication conduct), so that the consequences of the loss of dignity are removed and its repetition is prevented”.

The details of Sebastian Burduja

Commenting on the situation for Digi24.ro, the honorary adviser to the prime minister qualified his initial statements and said that people who “work 12-14 hours” for the state on salaries three times lower than what they could earn in the private sector “are crazy, crazy about Romania”.

He claims that “it is anathema that there must be low salaries in the state”, although “it is not correct”, because there are cases of budget officers who “have responsibilities of billions of euros on their hands” and “you cannot keep them with 1,000 euros, because it is not a salary commensurate with their skills and responsibilities”.

Sebastian Burduja was asked what he referred to in the other cases.

“The incompetents leave or must leave (…). Those who break the law, even more so if they are from the state institutions, must answer exemplary for it. When they broke the law, I was the first to take the necessary steps and the law must be applied there. But I repeat, most of them are from the category of “crazy” Romanians, you know, fortunately for this country”, Sebastian Burduja added.