A meeting of trade unions to discuss the cost-of-living allowance (CoLA) which was scheduled to take place on Thursday has been cancelled due to the ongoing wildfires raging in the Limassol district, union leaders confirmed.

Sek secretary-general Andreas Matsas and Peo secretary-general Sotiroula Charalambous told the Cyprus News Agency that a new meeting will be scheduled “within the next few days”.

CoLA has been a point of contention between workers and trade unions in recent months, with former chairman of the employers’ and industrialists’ federation (Oev) Antonis Antoniou having said earlier this year that it “should have disappeared”.

He went on to describe it as “anachronistic”, and said that “there are other tools for employees to achieve their progress, but we accept to continue it with some variations, with a modernisation which is consistent with the economic realities of recent decades”.

However, trade unions have long seen it as a vital tool to allow workers to keep up with the rising cost of living, with Matsas having said earlier in the year that for us, the issue of CoLA does not allow for any differentiation in terms of its interpretation, in terms of the role it has played for the benefit of workers, the economy, and stability in labour relations”.

He added that CoLA has helped to “maintain labour peace” and pointed out that it was created “through collective agreements”.

Stratis Mattheou, secretary-general of fellow trade union Pasydy, said CoLA has “contributed to labour peace for years” and “protects against the erosion of wages by inflation”.

His union’s position, he said, is “CoLA for all, CoLA at 100 per cent, CoLA in its philosophy”.

Labour Minister Yiannis Panayiotou has stressed that despite pressure from employers, the government has no intention of abolishing CoLA.

“The government’s positions are known and do not include the abolition of CoLA, but, on the contrary, the strengthening and improvement of it,” he said in April.

He added at the time that the government aims to make it “more effective through modern economic data to protect workers’ salaries from the increase in the cost of living”.