Labour Minister Yiannis Panayiotou on Tuesday appealed to both sides to end the cement workers strike that has entered its fourth week without resolution.

Employers and unions are negotiating a new collective agreement but the workers are also demanding restoration of their overtime pay that was reduced by consensus between 2018 and 2020.

They now want it brought back to pre-2018 levels, saying a deal was a deal.

In the meantime, the strike has brought the construction industry to a standstill.

Panayiotou told journalists he had written letters to both sides appealing for an end to the strike.

The employers, he said, accepted the letter but it was rejected by the workers.

“The restoration of normality in the concrete production sector is necessary for the smooth operation of the wider construction industry and other affected sectors to avoid negative effects on the Cypriot economy,” he said.

“Unfortunately we have entered the fourth week of strike measures despite the repeated efforts that have been made to bridge the gap.”

He said the gap had been small but “along the way” it has shrunk further.

Panayiotou said he had written to them to gauge their positions to see whether there was room to manoeuvre and reach a compromise.

The employers, he added, were positive on continuing discussions.

“However, the attitude of the trade union side was not positive,” Panayiotou said.

“There is no willingness to respond to the ministry’s goal of reaching a compromise agreement.”

The unions had restated their positions, he said.

“From the facts to hand, it does not seem to be possible to assess whether there is a possibility of reaching an agreement or of submitting any other proposal to defuse the crisis, to sign the collective agreement and to be able to return to normality,” Panayiotou said.

He appealed again to both sides and pointed out the need for responsibility to be taken up. The cost to the wider economy was greater than the cost of the disagreement between the two parties, the minister said.

“Through the demonstration of a little goodwill on both sides, reaching an agreement is possible, but for this to become a reality, the necessary steps must be taken,” he added.

Panayiotou did say that until now, the unions had not raised the issue of the reduced overtime until the renewal of the collective agreements came up.

It had been four years since the end of the agreement to scale it back and “no issue was raised” about it since that time, the minister said.

“The point is not to assign responsibility to one or the other side but to renew the collective agreement,” he concluded.

The original overtime rate had been set to time and a half for weekdays, and double on weekends, but the measure was temporarily set from 2018 to 2020 to time and a quarter.

The workers argue that the interim boost in the construction industry no longer justified holding back on the original rates.