Eighth anti-Boc confidence vote trips up
Romania’s opposition launched its eighth vote of no confidence against a Government led by Prime Minister Emil Boc in the last two years, this time using the excuse of attacking a new employer-friendly labour code
April 2011 - From the Print Edition
The “Boc Code - low wages, high unemployment, bankrupt firms” impeachment motion failed to attract the necessary 236 vote threshhold to bring down the coalition of the Democratic Liberals (PDL), Progressives (UNPR), National Union of Hungarians (UDMR) and the Minorities.
The motion - proposed by the opposition Social Democrats (PSD) and National Liberals (PNL) - gained 212 votes in favour, four against and two spoilt ballots.
PDL Deputy Mircia Giurgiu recognised publicly that he voted in favour of the censure motion and is now facing exclusion from his party.
The unions also attacked the new Labour Code at the Constitutional Court, but this court - the highest legal voice in the country - declared that the code is constitutional.
The unions have argued that the new laws undermine the freedom of association by allowing employers to suspend the contracts of striking employees.
It also gives rights to employers to collectively sack a bunch of workers and then re-hire for these positions in the following day. The code reduces uninterrupted vacation from 15 to ten days and allows an employer to hire for a trial period as many people he or she likes and renounce them after the probationary period ends.
This is the opposition’s eighth vote of no confidence against an Emil Boc-led Government in the last two years. The only accepted censure motion was on 13 October, 2009, when Boc’s cabinet was dismissed. This was the first fall of a post-Revolution government through a vote of no confidence.