A “spontaneous” protest blocks the Bucharest subway on Friday morning, March 26. Around 500,000 passengers were using subway on a regular basis before pandemic, yet the numbers drastically dropped recently.
Either way, subway is an efficient means of transport in Bucharest and the city dwellers use it whenever they want to get to certain destinations fast and civilized. A subway card for 2 trips is around 1 EUR, which is affordable for the population.
This is the context when, without any prior notice, on March 26, early in the morning, the Bucharest Subway Union members went on spontaneous strike, protesting by standing on the railway lines and refusing to transport passengers.
The reason behind the strike seems to be a very mercantile one. The protest sparked just a day after the minister of Transport announced that the commercial spaces which were licensed to function underground, inside the stations, have to be banned for not complying with the fire prevention standards.
Bucharest Subway Union has under its administration more commercial spaces underground and cashes in around 75% of the rent. According to sources, the contract between METROREX and the company established by the union expired in 2018.
In Romania, the act of blocking the means of transport is illegal and it is even, in certain conditions, considered to be a crime. At the moment, the Romanian PM and the Romanian minister of Transport asked for the intervention of the Gendarmerie and the prosecutors already opened a criminal case regarding the protest.
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