ZILINA, November 19, (WEBNOVINY) — Prime Minister Iveta Radicova stated on Friday that the leadership of the KOVO trade union has the right to declare strike alert but she thinks that problems should be tackled by negotiations. The prime minister reacted to the statement of KOVO issued earlier in the day to announce their plan to be tougher than in protests last month. They plan new activities against the government’s austerity package to consolidate public finances, the draft amendment to the Labor Code and the new law on collective bargaining. The prime minister argues that governments in all EU countries currently have to take measures to improve the state of public finances since the situation remains very serious. Moreover, the Slovak government chose to squeeze the general government gap in the way, which minimizes the impact of measures on socially most vulnerable groups of inhabitants. Moreover, argued the prime minister, the government increases the amount finances it spends to support employment, families, and investments in public infrastructure and highways, the aim of which is creation of jobs.
The unions said on Friday that the government did not accept any important demand they had following protest marches in Kosice, Bratislava, and Zilina in October and thus they are considering more action, including a potential general strike. According to KOVO leader Emil Machyna, the austerity package, the Labor Code and now also the law on collective bargaining have a serious impacts on the living standard of employees and fundamentally weaken the rights of trade unions. He complained that the current government behaves as that of Meciar before 1998 and suppresses rights of trade unions and principles of democracy. “Exactly this happened to us under the government of Vladimir Meciar. When we quit the tripartite, he established yellow trade unions and they bargained without us. We feel that this government does the same thing, supports setting up yellow unions in companies, to circumvent us and complicate the process of bargaining,“ said Machyna.
SITA