In protest of a new overtime law, the Hungarian opposition has demonstratively withdrawn from parliament at the beginning of the first session this year. When parliamentary president Laszlo Köver of the ruling party Fidesz gave the floor to members of these parties, the respective faction left the plenary chamber closed. „This is a protest against the ’slave law‘,“ said MP Laszlo Varju of the left-liberal Democratic Coalition (DK) at a subsequent press conference.
The majority of the government had passed what was called the slaves law by critics last December, amidst popular turmoil in parliament. It stipulates that employers can claim from their employees up to 400 instead of the previous 250 overtime hours a year. Thousands of people in Budapest and other cities in the country took to the streets against the new regulation.
Criticism of Suzuki work
The action was joined by all opposition parties and Members of Parliament, from the right-wing Radical Jobbik (The Better) to the left-wing Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP). As the delegates said at the press conference, they then wanted to pay a visit to the Suzuki plant in Esztergom, 30 kilometers north of Budapest.
The subsidiary of the Japanese carmaker wants to use according to the MEPs not only the new overtime law, but also prevent the employees to form a union. However, a spokeswoman for Suzuki Hungary denied the allegation that the company is applying the new overtime regime.
They have not even exhausted the previously possible 250 overtime hours per year, she quoted the state news agency MTI. She did not comment on the question of suppression of trade union activities.
