Labour Minister Yiannis Panayiotou will hold separate meetings with workers and employers over the cost-of-living allowance (CoLA) with the aim of staving off the looming three-hour general strike over the issue next week.

The scheduling of separate meetings was confirmed by employers and industrialists federation (Oev) secretary-general Michalis Antoniou, who told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) that he had ruled out the holding of a joint meeting so long as the “threat of strike measures” remains.

As such, he said, he would hold a meeting with Panayiotou on Friday morning, adding that while he will not meet the unions, Oev has a “principle” that it will never “reject any invitation from the minister”.

“The effort is to find a solution, to reach an agreement,” he said, adding that “we are committed to this, and call on the unions to cancel the strikes and come to discuss this as intensively as we can”.

He said that if this call cannot be heeded, essential services, “especially ports, airports, and hospitals”, should be exempted from the strike.

Trade union Sek’s secretary-general Andreas Matsas, meanwhile, told CNA that the “full restoration of CoLA” is a “prerequisite” for the strike to be called off.

“If this is achieved, we can discuss other parameters,” he said.

Earlier, trade union representatives had told the Cyprus Mail that “almost everything will be affected” by the strike.

“Salary increases have been applied unfairly for decades. CoLA should continue for everyone, even those on the minimum wage. All trade unions agree, and we are moving forward together,” one trade union representative said.

Trade union Peo’s secretary-general Sotiroula Charalambous had on Monday said the planned strike is “the first step in a series of measures, until we achieve the goal, which is collective and universal”.

The labour ministry, meanwhile, called on both sides to engage with one another to bring the dispute to an end.

“Despite the difficulties and disagreements, the intensive effort to reach an agreement must continue, and the taking of strike measures must be avoided to preserve labour peace,” it said.

Earlier in the year, former Oev chairman Antonis Antoniou had expressed his distaste for CoLA, saying it “should have disappeared”.

“We believe that it should have disappeared. 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,” he said.

His views were echoed by Cyprus chamber of commerce and industry (Keve) chairman Philokypros Rousounides, who also described it at the time as “an anachronistic institution, which needs improvement or replacement with a new mechanism”.