Florin Manole, at the presentation of the balance sheet: We made a new wage law in which no one loses income
The resigned Minister of Labor, Florin Manole, declared on Monday at the presentation of his activity balance sheet that the wage law was constructed in such a way that no one would lose income, but the wage disparities and part of the increments were eliminated and the wage scales were rearranged.
Florin Manole: We made a new wage law in which no one loses income
“A point, which seems to me to be extremely important, which represents a PNRR milestone, which aroused a lot of interest from the social partners, but also from everyone who works in the budget system, is the wage law. I made a very advanced first draft of this law, which interim minister Pîslaru (Dragoş Pîslaru, nr) will find today, when he comes to the ministry, I will hand it over personally and we will communicate about this project. I want to assure you that I will collaborate for this desired, to have a good law at the end of all the steps and all the consultations for the entire salary system. The very important principles that I have followed during this term in relation to this important project are the following: First, we have made a new law in which no one loses income. Secondly, we had a completely disorganized system, with over 100 changes, for example, just to the health and social assistance annex. Well, here we eliminated these disparities, this disorder, and rearranged the salary scales as they should, to be correlated with the importance of the work, with the complexity of the work, and with all the indicators that had to be taken into account“, explained the former minister in the conference for the presentation of the balance sheet.
Thirdly, he added, the salary ratio between the lowest basic salary and the president's monthly allowance will be reduced. In the old law there was a ratio of 1 to 12, and the draft provides for a ratio of 1 to eight. At the same time, the reference value will be 4,325 lei, equivalent to the minimum wage in the economy as of July 1, 2026.
“In this way, we will decouple, in fact, the future increases in the budgetary wage system from the increase in the minimum wage in the economy, because here was one of the main problems that caused this public policy, in its previous form, not to be applied. Of course, this does not mean that in the future someone from the public system will earn below the minimum wage in the economy. Such a thing cannot and will not happen and it remains the task of future governments to pursue this objective from the periodic indexing of this benchmark“, stated Florin Manole.
A good part of the growths have been removed
According to him, in the current draft of the draft law, most of the increments are eliminated and the total envelope for increments is changed from 30% to 20%.
“We balance the salary income from the budgetary system, I told you earlier, and I give you some examples of professions, of positions where these restorations of equity will be felt most meaningfully: the medical assistant with post-secondary education, the librarian with higher education, the pre-university teacher with the first didactic degree. I chose only three examples from important systems for the Romanian society: Health, Education, Culture to illustrate the fact that there was a need for a rearrangement of the grids and a new order and the establishment of a new order in the budget system”the former minister also said.
Regarding the term in which this law can be completed, Manole specified that only after the Ministry of Finance will officially transmit the available fiscal space to the Ministry of Labor, because it needs to be within certain limits, according to the agreements with the European Commission, but he mentioned that it must be adopted by the end of this parliamentary session, in order to fulfill the milestone in the PNRR.
When asked about the annex for dignitaries, the former minister explained that the coefficients were reduced compared to the old law and that he asked the European Commission to further freeze dignitaries' salaries.
“In the old law, the incomes of dignitaries were frozen, as you know, for more than 7 years. If this is still desired, it is the decision of the future Government. I wrote to the European Commission requesting this freeze, because I did not want the salaries of dignitaries to represent a vulnerability of this law and generate social tensions“, pointed out Florin Manole.
He also emphasized that a good law for payroll in the budget system must take into account all the observations and all the suggestions that will come from the unions, from the other ministries, from the social partners.
Florin Manole reiterated, during the conference, that he did not “study” the draft of the Salary Law project that appeared in the public space and that the ministry does not recognize that document, especially since there were things that were finalized “long after those news were already circulating”.
“Once again, I don't know, I didn't study the project that circulated in public space, because The salary law is a big project and I had work until Friday on this project which we have in the ministry and which we sent in this draft form to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance and the Deputy Prime Ministers in office at the time. I discussed and forwarded this draft to Mr. Pîslaru, and afterwards I discussed with Mr. Pîslaru about certain items in the project. So, what we reported is definitely different from what appeared in the public space, because, once again, when the public space news was rolling in on this subject we were not done yet“, Florin Manole said.
