The trade unions will stage a strike in the spring, if a new collective bargaining law is not adopted, Zhelyazko Hristov, President of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB) said on Tuesday. He made this statement emerging from a meeting of the trade unions, representatives of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy and representatives of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP).

The meeting was prompted by a Bill Amending the Settlement of Collective Labour Disputes Act, moved by BSP MPs Peter Mrutskov, Ivan Gorolomov, Zlatko Zlatev and Trifon Mitev. Under the bill workers would not have the right to go on strike before the dispute is referred to an arbitrary body under the Social Ministry, said Konstantin Trenchev, President of the Podkrepa Labor Confederation.

The unionists categorically disagree with the bill and describe it as "restricting workers' constitutional right to strike and unionist protests", says a CITUB declaration circulated also on
Tuesday. CITUB insists to draft a new bill regulating the right to strike in compliance with the European Social Charter and the acts of the International Labor Organization.

The trade unions, Labor Minister Emilia Maslarova and BSP will name a working group that will draft a new bill, BSP MP Maya Manolova said. She stressed that the Socialist Party does not back the bill, moved by Mrutskov.

Hristov recalled that until recently workers in the areas of energy, telecommunications, medicine and railways did not have the right to strike and the civil servants are still deprived of this right, which is a contradiction of the democratic norms.