Bulgarian State Rail (BDZ) employees staged a demonstration at Sofia Central Station on January 11 2010, Bulgarian National Television (BNT) reported. According to reports, the strike action was prompted because about 14 500 BDZ staff have not received wages for November 2009.

Protesters claim that Transport Minister Alexander Tsvetkov has not fulfilled his promise to guarantee the payment of salaries to BDZ personnel. Meanwhile, their colleagues from the National Railroad Infrastructure Company (NRIC) have been paid in full.

Allegedly, the workers said that the minister is unaware that both institutions are separate and independent structures, and that when wages are paid in one agency, that is completely irrelevant to what happens in the other, Mediapool reported.

BDZ workers have said that the strike will continue until they are paid, chairman of the BDZ trade union with the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB), Petar Bunev, was quoted as saying by Focus news agency.

According to reports from various Bulgarian media, a total of 1300 employees are poised to be made redundant by BDZ and its three subsidiary branches: freight, passenger transport and locomotives. This trimming began on October 1.

The accumulated debt of both state-run companies, BDZ and NRIC, amounts to nearly 500 million leva, according to Transport Minister Tsvetkov. Earlier on September 1, NRIC announced that as part of its money-saving and restructuring programmes, it would temporarily withhold 30 per cent  of its employees' monthly wages until the end of 2009 in another drastic measure to keep afloat.