Eighty per cent of ready-mix cement workers were back at work on Wednesday morning, union leader Stelios Tsiapoutis said.
This included workers in the largest cement manufacturing companies which employ the vast majority, he told the CyBC.
Workers had decided on Tuesday to return to work as long as companies signed the new collective agreement, after some wrangling on part of the employers over the naming of the agreement.
Wording was altered from “branch [understood as trade]” agreement to “company” agreement, reflecting the fact that decisions would be made company-by-company, on whether or when to sign.
Tsiapoutis said he had not yet been informed on the situation with workers at smaller companies and if they were prepared to restart.
The first to sign the much-debated agreement as a “symbolic gesture” was the concrete makers’ association chairman Costas Kythreotis, who was among the board members to resign on Monday.
Workers had met with trade unions on Monday after steps to renew a contentious collective agreement stumbled on employers’ refusal to accept a labour ministry mediation package.
The proposal for the agreements to be signed individually by employers was put forward by trade unions Sek, Peo and Deok.
Tsiapoutis had told the Cyprus Mail that workers would return as soon as employers signed and would continue their strike wherever employers refused to sign.
Deok’s Stelios Efstratiou said next steps wherever employers failed to sign were to be determined.
On Monday, the concrete makers’ association faced a wave of resignations, resulting in its dissolution.
About 15 of 29 members withdrew from the association, while four of its nine board members also resigned, due to failure to serve their members.
“We undertook a project regarding labour issues which we did not manage to implement according to the expectations of our members,” they stated.
In the aftermath of the break-up, Kythreotis said there was no reason for the association to exist and that the removal of the association from the Cyprus chamber of commerce and industry (Keve) register was imminent.
