Petition launched to make public transport strike in Bulgaria’s capital indefinite

Sofia: The public transport strike in Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia entered its third day on May 16, with drivers at the Zemlyane garage initiating a petition to make the strike indefinite and saying that there would be no trams, trolleybuses and buses running this weekend either.

Sofia’s metro underground railway is continuing to run, as it has since the strike began, with extra trains and shorter intervals to cope with massively increased demand.

The dispute involves demands for higher pay and trade union organisers have rejected the offer made by Sofia mayor Vassil Terziev, who has insisted that the trade unionists’ demands are unaffordable and who has pointed to the succession of large hikes in drivers’ pay in recent years.

The trade unions said that they had been trying to initiate new talks on May 16, but Terziev has issued an invitation for a resumption of talks on the morning of May 18.

Terziev said that the talks would take place only there was an understanding that both the motor vehicle transport and the metro would be operating “so that Sofia residents do not have to be hostage to our talks”.

He said that Sofia municipality was offering 100 leva net on the basic salaries in the four municipal transport companies plus a 100 per cent increase in the bonus in electric transport and road transport, which adds up to about 300 leva.

The unions are demanding the urgent allocation of additional financial resources from the state budget to a total of 40.7 million leva. They are demanding 29 million leva for Sofia’s urban transport, 6.5 million leva for the urban transport in Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Varna, 0.7 million leva for that in the Danube city of Rousse and 4.5 million leva for the Motor Vehicle Administration Executive Agency.

The political row about the strike continued on May 16, targeting Terziev, of the We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria coalition, rivals to former prime minister Boiko Borissov’s GERB party.

WCC-DB repeatedly has accused GERB of fomenting the strike to sabotage Terziev. WCC-DB has alleged that there are links between Borissov and key figures among the protest organisers.

Borissov, speaking to reporters in Parliament on May 16, described Terziev as “impotent” and said that the mayor was causing Sofia to wallow in “dirt and traffic jams”.

On Facebook, a protest was being organised in support of Terziev, to be held on May 19.