BKV strike in Budapest soon?

According to vs.hu, BKV (Budapest Transport Company) didn’t give a reasonable offer, so a BKV trade union envisaged a strike. Only the day of the work stoppage must be determined. It will also happen a few days, if the capital doesn’t give more increase than the promised 2%.

The labor dispute on wage increase has been last between the City Public Transport Workers’ Trade Union Federation (VTDSZSZ), the Budapest Transport Trade Union Confederation (BKSZSZ) which is the biggest trade union of bus drivers, and the BKV for several weeks. These two representative trade unions have 7 thousand members from the 12 thousand employees of BKV, where the number of union members is around 8-9 thousand.

BKV offered a 2% basic wage increase on April 30 and guaranteed the same amount of last year’s cafeteria, that is, the monthly HUF 5 thousand and the HUF 36 thousand Erzsebet vouchers at the end of the year. However, the two representative trade union want more, a basic wage increase similar to the public transport companies of the state and to those capital-owned companies where the increase happened.

Although BKV indicated at the Tuesday collective labor dispute that a higher offer was is possible in the future, but it couldn’t tell neither its extent nor the date. VTDSZSZ couldn’t do anything with this vague promise, and they already rejected the offer together with BKSZSZ. The BKSZSZ position hasn’t known yet, but the board of VTDSZ authorized the chairman to begin organizing the strike, vs.hu said. VTDSZSZ chairman Attila Gulyas informed about it Tibor Bolla, CEO of BKV.

A strike committee is being set up to prepare the strike. It will be responsible for defining the start time and the length of the strike.

The Strike Act amended in 2010 prescribes a 66%-sufficient supply level for public service companies within administrative borders – in addition to that, 50%. VTDSZSZ will instigate to form a working group of BKV experts and VTDSZSZ representatives, which makes the timetables for working and non-working days as well.

However, the VTDSZSZ chairman didn’t rule out the possibility of agreement. “The aim of VTDSZSZ is to conclude an acceptable level of wage agreement in a peaceful manner wherever possible. We would like to continue the collective labor dispute intensively” – Attila Gulyas told the BKV CEO.

Vs.hu knows the CEO of BKV wasn’t authorized by the Budapest local government on the hearing on Tuesday morning to accept a wage increase more than 2%.

Each percent of wage increase costs HUF half a billion to BKV. BKV quit the collective agreement in 2012. Then they abolished voluntary pension fund and health insurance contributions, so they took 6% income, HUF 3 billion from the employees.

based on the article of vs.hu
translated by BA

Photo: Daily News Hungary

Source: http://vs.hu