The National Trade Union Bloc announces the organization of a protest rally, together with the 29 affiliated federations, on May 13, 2024, starting at 10:00 a.m., in front of the Government of Romania, under the slogan “Respect for work and those who work!” Workers in Romania no longer want to be the guinea pigs of fiscal experiments!”.
The rally will be followed, starting at 12:00, by a march to the Ministry of Economy, Entrepreneurship and Tourism, the Ministry of Labor and Social Solidarity and the Ministry of Finance, states the NBS.
“The aim of this protest is to reduce labor taxation in Romania. In this way, we ask for respect for work and those who work! In recent years, the political class in Romania has put capital above all, and this has led to the migration abroad of 5 million Romanian citizens of working age. Romania today has the most hostile labor market in terms of social dialogue! Romanian workers have become the guinea pigs of the fiscal experiments carried out by all governments after 1989”, reads the quoted statement.
“Romania is the only country in the European Union and in the world where the contributions of the business environment to the social security system have been moved to the shoulders of employees since 2018. Thus, the contribution to health and the pension system has doubled for employees, while what for employers was reduced to zero. Today, Romania has one of the highest tax burdens on labor costs in the EU: 42.8% compared to the European average of 38.6%! More than 87% of the tax burden is represented by the social contributions levied to finance the social security system. 82.6% of the financing of the pension system and the health insurance system is provided by contributions paid by the insured persons, in proportion to over 97% of them being employees. The fiscal burden placed on the shoulders of employees is much more than 50%, as much as it represents the maximum burden provided by the IOM Convention and the European Social Security Code.
Low wages and high taxation have caused Romania to register the third lowest employment rate in the EU in 2023, after Italy and Greece, according to Eurostat data. Only 69% of Romanians aged between 20 and 64 work, which means that almost a third of Romanians do not work.
Returning to taxation, in 2023 Romania had an employed population of 7.7 million people, but only 5.6 million people paid social security contributions. 2.1 million employed persons did not pay contributions, although in some cases they received benefits. The quality of social protection benefits is very low. At 65 years old, healthy life expectancy in Romania is only 4 years, the EU average being 9.5 years for men and 9.9 years for women.
In the context where approximately 24% of pensioners in Romania are beneficiaries of the minimum pension, social transfers manage to a small extent to reduce the risk of poverty. The convenience of the tax administration and the ability of some socio-professional categories to obtain preferential treatment during working life have led to the current situation, in which a small share of workers in Romania must assume a significant cost to finance a social protection system which is almost universally used. In other words, instead of widening the tax base, the Romanian state prefers to take a lot from the fair ones!”, the NBS press release also states.
