By May 1 2008, CEZ Bulgaria's staff will be cut by 400, Luboš Pavlas, the company's regional manager for Bulgaria said on March 14 2008, as quoted by Focus news agency.

“The cut does not mean that people will loose their jobs because they will be offered other positions within the company. Further more we will open 60 new job positions,” Pavla said. 

On March 14 Pavlas met trade unions to discuss worker's demands for a 25 per cent salary increase, renewing the collective labour agreement (which expired on January 31), better working conditions and cancelling the staff cuts planned for May.

The two sides met several times in the past few weeks but no progress has been achieved. At the meeting Pavlas renew the offer for 17 per cent increase and eight per cent in bonuses, which would add an average 130 leva to the workers' salaries. 

“There have been eight fatal accidents among workers of Czech power utility CEZ in Bulgaria in the past 12 months,” Bozhidar Mitev from the independent trade union federation of energy sector workers said.

Mitev said workers are asked to answer emergency calls at 2am and report to work at 8 am, which was a breach of the Labour Code regulations. Pavlas said CEZ Bulgaria had fully kept to the terms of its contract with state for the privatisation of electricity distribution companies in western Bulgaria. In the past three years, CEZ Bulgaria has invested a total of 162 million leva, Pavlas said. “We want to invest 90 million leva every year,” he added.

He expressed a surprise that media was present the meeting hosted by KNSB trade union bloc. “This is not how disputes are solved in Europe,” he told KNSB's leader Zhelyazko Hristov.