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Workers to Donate Sperm to Pay Plant Debts
November 06, 2002 07:34 AM ET
BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Workers at a Romanian car factory have decided to donate sperm to get the debt-ridden plant out of the red, private television ProTv reported on Tuesday.
"Our feasibility study shows that if 1,000 workers donate their sperm for several months, we can get enough funds to pay part of the plant's debts," Ion Cotescu, trade union leader at ARO Campulung, told ProTv.
He said the decision came after reports in the local media said a fertility clinic in the western city of Timisoara offered donors the equivalent of $50 a visit. The monthly average wage in Romania is around $150.
The ARO Campulung plant, which makes jeep-style four-wheel-drives, has debts put at $20 million.
Cotescu told Reuters the sperm donation scheme also amounted to a protest against the government's privatization authority APAPS which had failed to find a strategic investor for the plant.
"They always told us to come up with a solution. Now, we have found one that even the best economists have never thought of. I hope APAPS will like it," he said.
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