Social welfare officers strike over staffing, workloads and safety

Nicosia, Cyprus. Social welfare officers began a 24-hour strike on Friday, seeking more staff to ease workloads, a reorganisation of services within the deputy ministry, replacement premises and stronger workplace safety measures.

Officers rally outside ministry

Members of Isotita’s social welfare officers branch assembled outside the deputy social welfare ministry on Friday morning with placards and banners.

Their messages stressed that children could not wait and solutions must not be delayed, warned that a breakdown in welfare endangered society, and called for staffing and organisational structures. Another message emphasised that children should not be treated as files, nor welfare officers as numbers.

Union links demands to service quality

Isotita chairman Prodromos Christofi said the action sought neither financial gains nor personal benefits. Instead, he said, officers needed to perform their duties unhindered, with manageable workloads that enabled them to stay productive and useful.

He said the demands also sought to give people access to appropriate services of a high standard. Staff had strong training and knew both the difficulties affecting services and what was needed to resolve them, he added.

“The problem of delays stems from the refusal to recruit staff, because this means additional costs,” Christofi said.

Branch president questions administrative duties

Andri Mattheou, president of the social welfare officers branch, said officers faced over a hundred problems. She said promises of restructuring and modernisation had continued for longer than a decade, while social problems had grown in number and become substantially more complicated.

“Social welfare officers are asking to be allowed to do their actual job, which is not in offices. It is among the people. We need to be alongside citizens,” she said.

Mattheou also said officers had spent the past 14 years administering emergency minimum guaranteed income (EEE) payments. She said that duty belonged with the benefits management service, which falls within the same deputy ministry.