Strike Loses Bulgaria's Railways EUR 60 000 Daily

The Bulgarian State Railways loses BGN 120 000 daily from the general strike. Photo by BGNES

The highly indebted Bulgarian State Railways BDZ are losing BGN 120 000 (appr. EUR 60 000) daily from the ongoing railway workers strike, BDZ CEO Yordan Nedev has revealed.

The daily losses of BDZ Passenger Services, one of the three subdivisions of BDZ, whose workers have been on strike for seven days now, amount to BGN 100 000, the company CEO said.

"These losses are incurred from the fact that commuters do not buy railway tickets now that they are aware of the strike," Nedev stated Wednesday during talks with the railway syndicates that fell through.

In addition, BDZ Passenger Services, which is the more profitable part of the state company and has been affected much less by the strike, is losing about BGN 20 000 daily, he pointed out.

Bulgaria's major syndicates have managed to terminate the operation of some 70-80% of the trains in the country between 8 am and 4 pm every day since November 24 in opposition to a government plan to lay off 2000 of BDZ's more than 13 000 workers, and to step some 150 trains from operation.

As of early October 2011, BDZ's total debts amounted to BGN 771 M; of those BGN 280 M are overdue.

Wednesday's talks between the unionists and the BDZ management failed to produce an agreement to end the strike.

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