LMP repeats call for public sector pay hike

Budapest, December 12 (MTI) – Green opposition LMP has once again called for a pay rise for public workers and civil servants, calling it “intolerable” that their wages are set to be unchanged for the ninth year in a row in 2017.

LMP demands that the base salaries of public workers and civil servants should be equal to the minimum wage, LMP co-leader Bernadett Szél told a press conference on Monday.

The salary cap for the heads of state-owned companies should also be adjusted in accordance with the base salary at the respective company, she added. Szél underlined the need for pay hikes at state-owned companies, arguing that there were companies where the company head made “fifty times as much” as his subordinates.

Szél said that the increased minimum wage of skilled workers was higher than the wages assigned to two-thirds of the categories in the public worker wage scale. This means that neither workers’ qualifications nor their work experience is taken into consideration when calculating their wages, she insisted.

Szél said the wage differentials in the public sector would lead to more people leaving the sector or further emigration.

She also lamented that in 2015, private sector white collar workers made about 150 percent of what public sector workers had made.

Photo: MTI

Source: MTI