The 'Carte de Munca'

Dear Everyone,

For those of you outside Roumania, you'll be wondering what a 'carte de munca' is. Well, it's a little booklet issued by the Department of Employment (I suppose) where everything pertaining to your professional life is noted: employer, company, address, date of entry, date and reason for leaving, salary etc... It's a bit like a tiny CV, but far more detailed, a sort of professional testimony for want of a better word. Without one a Roumanian cannot find work legally.

I was asked for mine when my audition with Mr Pruner was successful at the Atheneul. On professing to not having one because they don't exist in the west, everyone was mighty shocked. They didn't want to hire me without it. When they told me the salary I'd receive as a full time professional alto on their books, I said I'd rather sing voluntarily. Just as well - without the carta de munca, they couldn't have paid me anyway.

Thinking more about this little document, I can only say what an abuse of human rights I believe it to be. Every little detail follows you from your first job to your very last. You cannot exaggerate dates or salaries, you cannot lie. If you're an honest soul with no intention of pulling wool over eyes, you still have no privacy. And what about if you're fired from a position for health reasons, incompatability of character, etc etc? That will haunt you right down the line. I was told just the other day that if I intended to come and work long-term in Roumania, I would require one of these. No way! was my reaction. I don't want my salary noted on a card for all to see. That's private information, between me and my employer. It's my business. It's personal. My own mother doesn't know how much I earn, and I don't know how much she earns either. I come from a culture where such discussion is considered vulgar and where such knowledge is offensive. I don't know what my closest friends earn. I don't want to know.

Just thinking back to all the jobs I've had: shop assistant, hospital nurse, home-care nurse, hospice nurse, nursery nurse, home-help, sales manager, commercial distribution manager, dental nurse, assistant matron, nanny, governess, teacher...mine would be the size of a copy of 'War and Peace'. There wouldn't be enough pages in that little thing. As for all the work I've done under the table over the years, well, let's not even go there.

I'd like to have your opinion regarding this little card. Coming from a country where we don't even have identity cards (the UK), I had to get used to possessing one when I moved to France. Now in a country where my professional details should be transcribed onto a card like medical details in a bloodgroup document, I abhor the idea and refuse to accept such an invasion of my privacy.

I do hope that now the country of my heart is part of Europe the 'carte de munca' will soon be a thing of the past. Here's hoping. What's the point of it anyway? Are the employment or fiscal archives in such a mess that a little card in every individual's wallet is the only way to keep track on who worked where and for how long? Does it have some kind of connection with points for pensions? Other countries manage to calculate peoples' dues without such a thing. What's it all about? What's the logic of it? It's certainly a mystery to me that rather pongs of communism and the control it had over its people through surveillance, monitoring and obliterating peoples' rights to a private life.

Do please comment, let me have your views. I think it's an issue that should be addressed. Roumanians (and perhaps this applies to the whole Eastern block? I don't know) are used to it. I am not. And I will not tolerate it. I refuse to have one.

All comments welcome!

Comments

[romanian]

our mentality might have changed if the new system would have worked properly. all we got this far is a new system that has been dropped on us without proper implementation. too many of us have been wronged by clercs who don't know how to do theyr job or don't understand the system... I am one of them. The worst part... there's only a handfull of us who try to change things, to move them forward. And this is the mentality of a german by the way...I'm sure this system works very well were you are.

On the other hand not everything coming from the west/capitalists is good. Doing

all in the name of european standards, accepted blindly, for example, even to the extend where they can obliterate regional specifics (see the issue of homemade cheese, nowhere else in europe to be found in this form; milk that can be found fresh and untreated in commerce; or the issue of the carpatian bee that is threatened with extinction by the new european norms). Not all of us are narrowminded... we are the ones who know the old and the new and have to find the right/correct way to bring them both togheter or be cursed by our children for loosing our national integrity.

[romanian]

our mentality might have changed if the new system would have worked properly. all we got this far is a new system that has been dropped on us without proper implementation. too many of us have been wronged by clercs who don't know how to do theyr job or don't understand the system... I am one of them. The worst part... there's only a handfull of us who try to change things, to move them forward. And this is the mentality of a german by the way...I'm sure this system works very well were you are.

On the other hand not everything coming from the west/capitalists is good. Doing

all in the name of european standards, accepted blindly, for example, even to the extend where they can obliterate regional specifics (see the issue of homemade cheese, nowhere else in europe to be found in this form; milk that can be found fresh and untreated in commerce; or the issue of the carpatian bee that is threatened with extinction by the new european norms). Not all of us are narrowminded... we are the ones who know the old and the new and have to find the right/correct way to bring them both togheter or be cursed by our children for loosing our national integrity.

[DM]

It's all about mentality, romanian...

[romanian]

Amazement? About an issue you clearly do not understand.

This is not a public document. It is only between you and the employer who enters the data in this booklet and the Ministry. Your entire professional path and income during your professional live are entered there as it will help establish your pension and serve as proof for any later issues.

Whoever told you you can not be employed without owning such booklet was an incompetent ass... if you don't have one it will be issued by the first employer.

The situation has changed now. The booklet was replaced by an electronic entry only readable by your employer and the Ministry. And you are left begging for a copy or even paying serious money for that piece of paper to be issued. You never know if your data is there or got lost on the way, or the incompetent ass entered it later rhan he should have. At the end of your professional life you will find holes in your entries and will have to run around replacing those blasted scraps of paper.

Instead of having only a solid booklet in your pocket and the freedom to move wherever you want you now sit around at lines and waste time and resources to receive a A4 with a stamp and signature (that of course if the incompetent ass didn’t forget to enter some data, in which case you have to start all over again).

So guess what, we are not extremely happy about your capitalist system that helps official idiots step on our rights or let the system play with our future.

I do not agree with the communist system... I lived part of my live in that system and I know it tried more than capitalists do to ensure social stability and safety - but I suggest you do some studying before throwing words like invasion of and gross infringement of privacy/obliterating peoples' rights and such crap and I also suggest you take a good look in your own back yard.

[flora]

I too am amazed that it still exists after all this time and that no one even seems to 'mind' having one - they do not see it as an invasion of privacy as it is so much a part of life. I too think it a gross infringement of privacy rights. It would never be tolerated in countries of true freedom of speech and movement....