The advisers of the Sibiu Probation Service triggered the Japanese strike. Three other employees chose to go on hunger strike, while two councilors went to Bucharest to protest with colleagues from all over the country. They are asking for an increase in their salaries and say that they have been working “on duty” for 4 months.
A third of the probation counselors from all over the country, affiliated or not affiliated with the National Union of Counselors from Probation Services and the PROLEX Union in Romania, protested on Tuesday, between 11:30-13:30, in front of the Victoria Palace in Bucharest, as a result of not having received their full salaries since the beginning of the year. A few dozen other councilors who remained at their offices went on hunger strike and the rest are protesting through a Japanese strike.
From Sibiu, 2 probation councilors went to Bucharest to protest, 3 councilors are at the headquarters on hunger strike and the rest are showing solidarity through the Japanese strike.
“Since 2018 (since the entry into force of Law no. 153/2017), the probation staff have been left with reduced salaries, as a result of a wrong calculation, and only after 6 years of court proceedings was issued the Order of the Minister of Justice no. 1407/03.08.2023 by which a new salary level was established, but only in writing, but without being paid. Only in December 2023, after 130 probation counselors in the country went on hunger strike for a long time, the correct salaries were retroactively received, but the normality was short-lived, because from January 2024 the employer returned to the erroneous payroll from July 2023. The reason cited by the employer is that the budget of the National Probation Directorate does not have the money necessary to pay the wages in full until the end of 2024, so the decision was made to pay the wages only partially. The amount required, until the end of the year, for the full coverage of salaries is approximately 30,000 thousand lei.
Probation counselors are a small professional group (under 700 counselors in the entire system), not even 10% of the total number of clerks nationally and less than 3% of the total number of employees in the justice system. However, the savings to the state budget achieved through the efforts of the probation counselors are approximately 700,000 lei per month (the cost of supervision for 100,000 people and the civil obligations that are recovered through the probation services), by relieving the prison system, plus the indirect benefits through the integration social security of supervised persons on the labor market, at liberty, as tax payers.
The work of a probation counselor is complex, demanding and risky, all counselors have multidisciplinary higher education (law, psychology, social work and sociology), many with doctorates in the field. Equally demanding is the access to the system, where the admission contest lasts several months, with multiple tests at the national level. For what? For a starting salary of 3200 lei and only after obtaining all the degrees (4 exams held at national level) and 7-8 years of seniority in the system to reach the average net salary in the probationary system, of 4500 lei, this being the only benefit of the work done. Probation counselors do not have any of the rights of other professional categories in the justice, penitentiary or internal systems: settlement of rent, commuting expenses, special pension, not even settlement of medicines or trivial glasses”, the representatives of the Probation Service sent Sibiu.
If the current problems are not resolved, probation officers say there is a risk that staff will leave the system, given that in all areas of legal/psychological/social work the salary level is significantly higher. They draw the attention of the Government that strategies for the development of a system are carried out with people, professionals being the most important resource of the probation system. In the absence of the allocation of the necessary funds for wage correction, this system will involve and entail tens of costs for both the government and society.
