Romanians to sell sperm to save jobs

About 100 workers at a car factory in Campulung, central Romania, are planning to sell sperm to a fertility clinic to try to reduce their company's debt.

The idea came to them after local media reports that a clinic in the western city of Timisoara was offering donors the equivalent of $50 per donation - almost two-thirds of the workers' $80 monthly wage.

"We're afraid of losing our jobs," the plant's union leader Ion Cotescu told the AFP news agency.

"Orders are down and we have not been paid our salaries for several months."

Saddled with debts

The ARO Campulung car plant, which produces four-wheel drives, has more than 5,000 employees - and owes millions of dollars in debts.

The Romanian economy was run into the ground by the communist Ceausescu regime in its attempt to pay off national debt.

This left behind poverty and political instability - an environment in which reforms are difficult to foster, correspondents say.

Car factory officials would only comment that the scheme was "shameful".

But Mr Cotescu said: "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."

He told the Reuters news agency that the scheme was also a protest against the government's privatisation authority APAPS, which had failed to find investment in 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," Mr Cotescu said.