Samaras, Venizelos reach deal in university administrative staff dispute

Six hundred university administrative staff are set to get their jobs back after being fired last year as part of the government mobility’s scheme in the public sector. The decision was reached by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and Deputy Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos late on Sunday.

The move followed a dispute between the recently appointed Education Minister Andreas Loverdos and Administrative Reform Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. While the former argued that 880 employees are hired back, the latter called for 500. Meanwhile 1,134 university employees were placed in the mobility scheme last year as part of Greece's deal with the troika.

Employees placed in labor reserve would not be fired during the evaluation process and the period of rehiring, according to the government.

Coalition partner socialist PASOK had questioned over the weekend the government’s targets for sacking civil servants this year, suggesting that a better method for evaluation should be developed.

The government has pledged to sack another 7,000 civil servants this year to meet the target it has agreed with the troika, which was for a total of 15,000 dismissals in 2013 and 2014.