After nearly a year of negotiations, Cyta’s management and its main trade unions have reached a landmark agreement aimed at fostering institutional innovation and advancing staff development within the organisation.
Official announcements about the agreement are expected today, both from the management and from the three unions representing the majority of the employees.
The agreement is expected to be presented to the Ministry of Finance for final ratification. It might also be reviewed by Cyta’s new board of directors, which will take over from the current administration next week.
The ratification by the Ministry of Finance is deemed necessary, as the agreement, while providing Cyta with flexibility, also appears to increase labour costs through the envisaged upgrade of the hourly staff’s wages, who may choose to become permanent employees, specifically monthly employees under private law.
The creation of two new categories of employment tiers within the organisation, one under public law and the other under private law, is one of the main points of the agreement, which, according to union sources, will primarily benefit the hourly staff at Cyta.
Upgrading the organisation’s hourly staff, which amounts to several hundred, is perhaps the most significant aspect of the agreement, along with ensuring Cyta’s public nature, according to the same sources. They also confirmed that legislative measures would be required for provisions of the deal concerning incentives for existing public law personnel.
Speaking yesterday on the philenews podcast, the Secretary-General of OHO SEK, Andreas Elia, described the day as a milestone for Cyta, setting a good precedent for other public law organisations. According to him, the agreement’s goal is to maintain Cyta as a public law organisation. The agreement package, he mentioned, includes significant changes related to a modern and reliable evaluation system aimed at employee development.
In statements to Phileleftheros, the Secretary-General of SIDIKEK – PEO, Nikos Gregoriou, noted among other things that the agreement establishes a mechanism ensuring that public law employees cannot be less than 60% of the total number of employees, “which satisfies us.”
The agreement also ensures that the labour movement will have a say in any purchases or service assignments, marking the upgrade of the hourly staff’s working conditions. Specifically, he stated that the agreement significantly improves the working conditions of the hourly staff, which is converted to monthly indefinite-term employees.
The hourly workers will receive a 5.75% increase retroactively from January 1 and for the first time a 0.5% contribution from the employer to the Welfare Fund for medical care.
The agreement, which will last six years, also facilitates the organisation in hiring a specific number of new private law employees, with SIDIKEK- PEO having reservations on the matter.
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