Scandal at the largest employer in Maramureș. Massive pay cuts and a toxic phenomenon: workers enjoy the misery of their colleagues
The pay cuts and restructuring at Aramis Invest have sparked a debate that goes beyond the company's borders. Hundreds of TESA employees have been given the choice between a pay cut of up to 30% or redundancies, a move that workers say is “just what they need”. Human resources consultant Doru Şupeala draws attention to a deeper phenomenon: the lack of solidarity between employees and the misperception that office work does not bring value to a company.
Aramis Invest has given its TESA employees a choice between pay cuts and layoffs. Photo by Aramis
Aramis Invest, the largest employer in Maramureș and the company with the highest turnover in the county, has decided to reduce salaries by percentages between 10% and 30% for an important part of TESA's staff, due to the decrease in orders. The measure applies starting this month. According to internal sources, employees who do not accept the salary reduction can opt for the termination of the employment contract in exchange for financial compensations established according to seniority, which can reach approximately two salaries.
The cost optimization plan also includes the conversion of part of the TESA staff, which will be redeployed to the production areas. The decision comes after the company temporarily reduced working hours to four days a week in February and March this year, which resulted in employee incomes falling by around 20%. The measure was canceled before the Easter holidays, when business returned to normal hours.
Profit of 34.63 million lei in 2024
Aramis Invest, owned by Vladimir Iacob and Marius Șelescu, had 6,070 employees at the end of 2024 and a turnover of 1.94 billion lei, marking the eighth consecutive year in which it exceeds the threshold of one billion lei. As can be seen in the official information published on the website of the Ministry of Finance, Aramis Invest had a net profit of 34.63 million lei in 2024. The 2025 data is not yet published.
Commenting on the situation at Aramis, human resources consultant Doru Şupeala claims that the measures adopted by the company raise questions regarding the protection of employees and the role of state institutions.
In his opinion, the problem goes beyond the specific case of the company and reveals both the vulnerability of the employees and the lack of reaction of the authorities. “There are two discussions here. First, the way this employer cuts wages, counting on the fact that people will accept because they can't find another job. It is an abusive form and I do not see any kind of intervention by state institutions. This clearly proves to me that it does not work and that state institutions will not jump to defend people's rights“, said Doru Şupeala for “Adevărul”.
“Workers have a lot of hatred towards those who work in offices”
He says he also noticed another phenomenon, related to the perception of administrative work inside companies. “People in the manual labor area, factory workers, but also those in other fields, have an extraordinarily great hatred and envy towards people who work in offices. The TESA staff, including in the case of Aramis, consists of people dealing with supply, human resources, customer relations. They are people who carry out work with an important intellectual component. They use computers and are knowledge based“, explained the consultant.
According to Şupeăla, the reactions that appeared in the online space after the announcement of the measures from Aramis were revealing. “I've seen hundreds of comments where people say they're doing great, they're not working hard, and they're not adding value. The value of these activities is not perceived by those at the bottom of the company's hierarchy. People in offices are generally seen as people who are not directly productive and therefore as parasites, which is very wronghe said.
Such salary cuts were made during Ceaușescu's time
He believes that this perception has ancient roots. “The phenomenon is not new. After I published the video in which I described what was happening at Aramis, my mother, who is 75 years old, reminded me that the same thing happened during Ceaușescu's time. My mother was an engineer at the Truck Factory in Brașov, and in the last years of the regime, when the centralized economy no longer worked, salary cuts began precisely among engineers and TESA staff”. said Şupeăla, adding that in the last years of the communist regime, the salaries of this professional category were significantly reduced. “I can confirm that wages have been cut by 25% in the last two years of the regime. In 1987, 1988 and part of 1989, wages were paid at 75% of their value. I don't know if the measure was generalized everywhere, but in Bucharest it was applied to all employeeshe said.
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The consultant claims that many employees do not understand the role of administrative and intellectual activities in a company. “Many of the people at the base of society do not understand what intellectual work is, and if they do understand it, they cannot approach it. Out of envy, malice or lack of understanding, they end up enjoying the trouble of others. They don't realize that if TESA's staff stops working, their work won't stop either“, Şupeăla declared for “Adevărul”.
He drew attention to the fact that administrative functions are indispensable for the operation of a company. “If you run out of supply people, it means you don't need supply anymore. If you no longer need supply, it means you have no more orders. If you run out of orders, you won't get your salary either. Similarly, if you no longer need people in accounting, it means that there is no more activity to be accounted for. The company no longer operates, and the workers will no longer collect their wages“, explained the specialist.
“They're actually cheering and saying TESA staff don't deserve their money”
The consultant says he is surprised by the persistence of these perceptions more than three decades after the fall of communism. “It is shocking to me to see that, 35 years after the Revolution, this negative and toxic perception of some workers towards those who work in offices persists.” the consultant stated, adding that “it's outrageous to imagine that in a private company someone can afford to pay people for nothing just because you, the one on the production line, think you're the only one producing performance, sales and profit.”
The trap in the employment contract that many Romanians fall into. Consultant Doru Şupeala analyzes the wave of layoffs
Supeala recalls that he encountered a similar phenomenon in the IT industry, where technical specialists sometimes looked down on colleagues from other departments. “The difference is that in IT this attitude came from arrogance and selfishness rather than envy and hatred. In the present case it is shocking to see people actually jubilating and claiming that TESA staff do not deserve their money and are paid indecent wages. It's nonsense, because TESA's wages in a furniture factory, as well as in many other companies, are not much higher than those of workers”, he explained.
The consultant believes that the lack of solidarity between employees favors the perpetuation of problematic practices on the labor market. “The perception of those who do mainly physical work is that only they bring value, that only they make the effort, while those in offices are just walking papers and getting paid for nothing. This is a deeply wrong perception and I don't know how it can be changed. If we do not achieve social cohesion and mutual respect, we will never function as a society. We will remain victims of abusive employers and an economic context that keeps wages low because we encourage low-quality work and low-value-added activities“, explained the specialist.
The furniture industry in Romania, strongly oriented towards exports, is going through a period of adjustments against the background of the slowdown in demand in Europe and the increase in operational costs. In this context, the discussion about restructuring and layoffs goes beyond the strictly economic area and becomes a social one, related to the perception of work, the cohesion between employees and the level of protection offered by state institutions.
