ZILINA, November 19, (WEBNOVINY) — The KOVO trade union plans to be tougher in protests they are preparing against the Cabinet’s austerity package to consolidate public finances, the draft amendment to the Labor Code and the new law on collective bargaining. The unions claim the government did not accept any important demand they had following protest marches in Kosice, Bratislava, and Zilina in October, explained KOVO trade union leader Emil Machyna.
„We have already tested marches, now it will be something different, maybe done in a little bit different way,“ he said. He specified that the actions will take place in front of companies and will affect also transport. He however did not want to talk about the prepared actions in advance as they want first to work on them and only if the protest plan is ready they will announce it. There will be several other activities, tougher actions again, the impact of which also the public will feel, said Machyna. „We do not rule out a general strike,“ announced the trade union boss, at an extraordinary trade union meeting in Zilina.
„We do not see any forthcoming steps thus far,“ said Machyna. According to him, 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. Limited rights of unions mean immediate weakening of employees’ rights. The last draft bill on collective bargaining enables to block collective bargaining and if employers in some regions form so-called yellow unions, collective bargaining might be frozen forever, warned Machyna.
The KOVO leader 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 have a feeling that this government does the same thing, supporting setting up yellow unions in companies, to circumvent us and complicate the process of bargaining. And this is unacceptable in a democracy. There is a general rule that where trade unions work democracy is stabilized and where trade unions’ rights are suppressed also rights of democracy are restrained,“ concluded Machyna.
SITA