Socialists propose measures to “protect” Sunday workers’ supplementary pay

Budapest, April 17 (MTI) – The opposition Socialist Party will on Monday submit a proposal to parliament aimed at ensuring that people who work on Sundays receive at least a 100 percent bonus rate on supplementary pay, two of the party’s lawmakers said.

Earlier this week, parliament voted to repeal the law prohibiting retailers over 200sqm from opening on Sundays. The repeal also scrapped the rule which doubled pay for Sunday work and restored the 50 percent bonus rate that was in place before the Sunday shopping restrictions came into effect.

Zoltán Lukács, the Socialist Party’s deputy leader, said on Sunday that because the party does not want to burden employers, the bill prescribes that employers only have to pay social contributions on a 50 percent bonus rate. The bill regulates contributions in a way that ensures that employees do not lose out on benefits, either, he said.

Under the bill, employees could not be obligated to work more than two Sundays a month. Further Sunday work would be subject to a written agreement between the employer and employee to ensure the employee a legal guarantee.

The regulation would apply to every sector in which employees work on Sundays.

Lukács said the ruling Fidesz party reduced the 100 percent bonus rate to 50 percent as “an act of revenge” on the people who did not agree with the Sunday shopping restrictions. He said the law’s repeal should not automatically have had to mean restoring the 50 percent rate, arguing that the shopping restrictions and supplementary pay were regulated by two different laws.

István Nyakó, the lawmaker who initiated a referendum on the issue, said Fidesz only backtracked on the law legally but not politically and still favoured Sunday shopping restrictions. He reiterated that his party would continue collecting supporting signatures for a referendum on the subject, insisting that laws that are repealed “can be brought back at any time”.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters