154 CE Oltenia Employees to Lose Their Jobs in January 2025

Complexul Energetic Oltenia (CEO, Romania's largest coal-based energy producer) is implementing a restructuring plan that will directly affect 154 employees at its Minprest Serv subsidiary, who are set to lose their jobs this month. The move comes after more than 80 workers from the same unit were already made redundant the previous year.

According to representatives of the Sindicatul Liber Alfa Minprest trade union, these sweeping staff reductions are being driven by the closure of several open-cast mines and the implementation of a company-wide restructuring strategy. The situation leaves dozens of families without income at the start of the year, with an indirect impact on elderly members of those households who depend on financial support from relatives.

Union leaders have criticised the company's management, arguing that decisions are being taken "without any social conscience" and that productive employees are being let go while "privileges and unnecessary positions" are retained within the organisation. They have drawn attention to what they describe as a paradoxical state of affairs.

A particularly contentious issue highlighted by the union concerns the retention of approximately 200 pensioners within Complexul Energetic Oltenia, who continue to hold managerial and operational posts and receive substantial salaries. According to union calculations, this arrangement accounts for nearly half of the entire budget allocated to Minprest's operations for the current year.

Of the total number of employees affected, 102 people are yet to receive their redundancy notices, whilst a further 52 have already been laid off. The union has announced plans to organise protests in the coming weeks in a bid to halt the wave of redundancies and raise public awareness of the social consequences of these measures.