The "Security" trade union alliance at the interior ministry has sent an open letter to interior minister Ivan Demerdzhiev, opposing plans to cut staff with disability rulings. The union says it has learned that officers found to have reduced ability to work are about to lose their jobs.

"We firmly oppose cutting staff with disability rulings just because it suits the moment, and pushing them out into the job market," the alliance says in the letter.

The union links these workers' health problems — most often heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and nerve damage — to the tough conditions and stress of the job. Every officer signed up to work for the interior ministry, the group says, not to suffer a heart attack or a stroke.

If the cuts go ahead anyway, the alliance wants the state to guarantee by law that these people can move to other posts at the interior ministry or in state and local government on favorable terms. They should not be let go just for the sake of it, the union says, or without good reason, under pressure from the economic and political climate of the moment.

The letter also raises planned mass layoffs of civil servants who have already reached retirement age but have not yet finished their service. These people retire at around age 55, the union says.

If the state no longer wants to keep the "working pensioner" system, the alliance suggests it simply stop applying it going forward, without touching people already under the old rules. By its own estimate, this would mean no working pensioners left within five years, with their number dropping by about 20% a year.

The alliance is asking for a meeting with interior ministry leadership and wants an immediate written answer on what the ministry has in mind and what it plans to do.

In May, at a meeting with ministry unions, Demerdzhiev said "there will be no cuts without proper review, but departments with overlapping duties will be streamlined" to make the ministry run more efficiently. The state's finances are in a very difficult state, he said at the time, with costs piling up since the start of the year that the current government has to deal with. Tighter financial discipline is needed, he said, because of decisions made by previous governments.

The interior ministry has set itself a deadline of 2026 to get through the tough situation. After that, Demerdzhiev says, it will look for a fair and clear way to set pay for civil servants across the board.