Bulgarian rail staff strike to end cuts

Organised workers paralysed Bulgaria's train network for eight hours today in a bid to scotch government plans to lay off 2,000 state rail staff and impose a pay freeze on the remaining 11,000 employees.

Two-and-a-half hours into the action, the strike committee said just 13 of 123 services were running.

The head of the heavily indebted state-owned BDZ Holding railway company, Vladimir Vladimirov, estimated daily losses from the strike at €300,000 (£258,000).

The Confederation of Independent Syndicates in Bulgaria (KNSB) announced that the strike would continue, with no trains running between 8am and 4 pm every day until a compromise is reached.

KNSB is fighting to defend rail services and pension rights, as well as jobs and wages.

It is adamant that BDZ bosses must ditch plans to cut 150 train services and bump up ticket prices by up to 15 per cent under the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (Gerb) government's deficit reduction scheme.

And the KNSB expects the Gerb administration to reverse plans to raise the retirement age by a year starting from 2012.

It is is also demanding a new collective agreement and insists that bosses must not sell off the only profitable unit of BDZ, BDZ Freight Services.

Representatives of the Podkrepa (Support) Labour Confederation joined their KNSB colleagues at Plovdiv station today for a protest rally.

Hundreds demonstrated at stations around the country, including the Central Railroad Station in Sofia and at Varna.

Workers marched peacefully in the blue caps and vests of the Podkrepa trade union, under the watchful eyes of riot police.

Earlier in the week opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party leader Sergey Stanishev expressed support for the KNSB saying: "We second the strikes and protests, because this cabinet can learn only by pressure and can be stopped only by showing the stick."