Prison unions threaten strikes over proposed housing allowance cuts

Prison officers’ trade unions may organise protests in the autumn over planned reductions to housing allowances, LRT reports.

The Lithuanian Trade Union of Pre-Trial Investigation Institutions and the Vilnius County Trade Union of Pre-Trial Investigation Institutions said they were shocked by information from the Ministry of Justice on projected funding for the Lithuanian Prison Service from 2027 to 2029.

The unions said the planned allocations showed that there was no genuine political ambition to move the penal enforcement system beyond decades of Soviet-era practices.

They were particularly critical of the proposed housing allowance funding. The Lithuanian Prison Service requested more than 321,000 euros in additional funding for officers’ housing allowances in 2027. However, the Ministry of Justice’s letter allocated only 7,000 euros for the benefit.

“Until now, housing allowances at 100 percent were one of the few real measures that allowed the system to attract and retain officers. Now there is talk of reducing them to 50 percent. When there is a shortage of staff, the authorities come up with the idea of taking away one of the measures that helps retain them,” said Vitalijus Jagminas, chairman of the Vilnius county union.

“This is no longer a management mistake, it is madness. The minister is trying to turn officers into simple welfare applicants,” he added.

Kęstutis Pauliukas, chairman of the national union, also criticised the authorities’ handling of travel allowances. He said unions had demanded that the allowance be raised from 8 cents to 15 cents per kilometre after fuel prices rose sharply, but had received only written responses instead of a solution.

“It now seems that penal enforcement officers will be forced to spend their entire salaries on travelling to work and renting housing,” Pauliukas said, adding that inflation also reduces part of their pay each year.

According to the Ministry of Justice’s letter, the Lithuanian Prison Service is preliminarily expected to receive just over 104.08 million euros each year from 2027 to 2029. The payroll budget is also set at the same level for all three years, at 79.6 million euros annually.