Bulgarian Border Police Protest to Demand Higher Pay

Border police stage a protest on their professional holiday on 22^nd of December. The police officers said they would held the protest at the border crossings with Greece, Mecedonia and Serbia but will not disrupt the traffic.

About 50 border police officers gathered at Kulata – Promahon border crossing. Other protests were held at Stanke Lesichkovo, Stezimirovtsi and Elhovo at 11:00. The protest at Durankulak and In the Regional Police Station in Sliven took place at 12:00.

The reason for the protests is their unfulfilled demands - a 15% increase in salaries retroactively, urgent changes to the current MoI law and the drafting of a new law to be adopted in 2018. Despite the signed collective agreement, they continue to insist on higher wages.

Valentin Popov, Chair of the Trade Union of MoI Employeesc says that collective bargaining agreement and wage increases have nothing in common. Our request was, still is, and is the reason we are protesting, one of our demands is an increase in wages this year. We suggested this increase to be equal for all so that we could at least catch up with the basic salary the increase of the minimum and average salary for the country. For 2018, we wanted another increase, a differentiated one, for which we were willing to talk, he said.