The government will make changes to the Terms and Conditions to implement the EU minimum wage directive in the community.
This became known during the parliamentary debate on Wednesday. The State Secretary of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, János Fónagy, spoke of November 15th as the deadline to incorporate the relevant EU requirements into national law. The government will set up a consultation forum to determine the binding lowest wage for employees and skilled workers. The State Secretary mentioned in detail the new powers of the works council, which will be able to raise objections in the future if the employer wants to increase the proportion of guest workers (employees from third countries outside the EU) by 5 percentage points.
Decent wages required
The DK MEP, Klára Dobrev, recalled her initiative in the European Parliament to achieve decent wages in Eastern Europe and especially in Hungary so that workers are no longer squeezed out. “Europe has understood that you cannot bleed workers dry; efficiency is something else. With one exception, all governments in the member states have understood that people are not there for the economy, but the other way around,” said the opposition politician. Only Viktor Orbán believes that the profits of multinationals and oligarchs are more important. In the meantime, even the Romanian minimum wage has surpassed the Hungarian minimum wage. “The fact that this policy is leading to a national tragedy is shown by the emigration numbers, which have risen to record levels. With your law,” she addressed the Fidesz MPs, “people are being humiliated and forced to work for starvation wages.”
Labor costs in Hungary are a third
For the MSZP, Dezső Hiszékeny formulated the claim that minimum wage earners should not be exposed to the risk of poverty. “A minimum wage at EU level is not feasible,” which is why the Socialists welcomed the fact that the legal design was referred to the member states.
Balázs Ander provided concrete figures from Jobbik: According to this, wage costs in Hungary are just over 10 euros per hour, compared to an average of 30 euros in the EU. Making the determination of the minimum wage more transparent is right, but employing “migrants” is wrong. There is no concept of how the Orbán government wants to achieve a “normal” wage level.
Fines don’t hurt
Dávid Dócs from Mi Hazánk criticized the low number of inspectors of occupational health and safety regulations. “They increase the amount of fines for legal violations in vain if there is no one who can impose these sanctions.” The number of controls is decreasing year following year, although in 2022 78% of 14,000 employers were found to have violated the rules. Those on the right doubt that a consultation forum put together by the government can have any influence.
The multinationals lured into the country with lavish tax money don’t care one bit regarding the safety of their employees, explained László Lóránt Keresztes for the LMP. The battery factories alone had received 600 billion forints (at current prices around 1.5 billion euros) in subsidies and were now constantly causing scandals. The fines have already been increased, but these would have to be based on the profits of the companies in order to really hurt them.
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