Wild strike not supported by Trade Unions

A liberal commentator excoriates the Trade Union confederations which cautioned against illegal strikes in protest against government policies.

In Magyar Narancs, Zsolt Zsebesi calls the union leaders ‘disgraceful impotent dunces’ for supporting the demands put forward by protesting teachers (see BudaPost, March 17 and 18), but not the wildcat strikes proposed by the main speaker at the March 15 protest rally. Zsebesi argues that the proposed industrial action is only illegal because the right-wing parliamentary majority ‘made it impossible to organise strikes’ in Hungary. Thus, he concludes, ‘cowardly’ union leaders suggest that any serious resistance to the current government is hopeless anyway and they would thereby ‘be digging their own graves”. (The Teachers’ Democratic Trade Union is trying to create the legal conditions for a one hour symbolic strike on 30 March 30, although as its chairman has admitted, ‘time is short’.)

Tags: protests, teachers