Workers in the cement industry decided on Tuesday to return to work at any companies that have signed the new collective agreement, while the strike, now in its fifth week, will continue where they have not.

The first to sign the agreement as a “symbolic gesture” was the concrete makers’ association chairman Costas Kythreotis, who was among the board members to resign on Monday.

Sek trade unionist Stelios Tsiapoutis told the Cyprus Mail that “the large companies, employing the overwhelming majority of workers in the sector, will be signing the agreement.

“When an employer signs the agreement, the workers will immediately return to work,” he added.

Workers met on Monday morning with trade unions to decide new steps after efforts to renew their collective agreement stumbled on the employers’ refusal to accept a labour ministry mediation package.

The proposal for the agreements to be signed by willing employers individually was put forward by trade unions Sek, Peo and Deok.

Tsiapoutis said workers would continue their strike wherever employers refused to sign the agreement.

He added that there appeared to be quite a few employers ready to sign and thus put an end to the strike.

Peo trade unionist Michalis Papanicolaou said the workers were united and that the way was paved for those employers who wished to sign the collective agreement.

Deok’s Stelios Efstratiou said the next steps would be agreed wherever employers failed to sign the collective agreement.

On Monday, the concrete makers’ association faced a wave of resignations and may even be forced to dissolve, Kythreotis said.

About 15 of the association’s 29 members had withdrawn on Monday, while four of its nine board members had resigned, because “we undertook a project regarding labour issues which we did not manage to implement according to the expectations of our members.

“Several members then left and thus there is no reason for the association to exist,” Kythreotis said, adding that the move may mean that the association will be removed from the Cyprus chamber of commerce and industry (Keve).