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Railway employees, unhappy with the deplorable condition of the Romanian railway sector
Several hundred employees of the National Romanian Railway Company (CFR) staged a protest on Friday in front of the Transport Ministry, unhappy with the deplorable condition of the Romanian railway sector, union leaders said.
"The absence of investments in railway infrastructure and train repair could trigger any time a large-scale accident as dramatic as in the Colectiv club. Increasingly more speed restrictions are in place, there are rail stretches where trains cannot travel with more than 5 kilometers per hour because otherwise they could cause an accident. That's why we are here, to sound alarm that we must prevent a new Colectiv," said Petre Trifu, a traffic controller with CFR Caracal and a trade union member; he was referring to the fire that killed and injured scores of people in October 2015, in a club in Bucharest.
Trifu also explained that although a traffic controller's responsibility is no less important than that of an air traffic controller, as the safety of dozens of trains depend on him every day; the rail sector is underfinanced and salaries and bonuses are far smaller measured against the work amount and job responsibilities.