BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungarian trade unions on Saturday protested a government plan to raise workers' allowable overtime from 250 to 400 hours a year and the relaxing of other labor rules meant to offset Hungary's growing labor shortage.
The government says labor flexibility is needed to satisfy investors' needs — like those of the German car companies whose factories help drive Hungary's economic growth — and to allow workers looking to earn more to work longer hours.
Union leaders said that what they call the "slave law" proposals reflect the intention of Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government to boost companies' profits at workers' expense.
Laszlo Kordas, head of the Hungarian Trade Union Confederation, told several thousand protesters that Hungarians were working "at Europe's lowest wages."
Beside the increase in allowable overtime hours, which is the equivalent of adding a full day to the working week, unions are also the objecting to the extension to three years from one year of the period employers get to settle the payment of accrued overtime.