Hungary unions hold anti-Orban rallies

Bloomberg

Hungarian labour unions are staging nationwide protests and threatening the first general strike since the end of communism to pressure Prime Minister Viktor Orban into repealing a controversial new law on overtime.
Rallies were planned in Budapest and more than a dozen other cities on Saturday against what critics have dubbed the “slave law”, which allows companies to ask employees to work the equivalent of six days a week. The legislation touched off more than a month of protests that have snowballed into a call for end of Orban’s illiberal rule.
While the chances for a political cataclysm are slim given that Orban’s Fidesz has about as much support as a handful of opposition groups combined, the protests have started to chip away at the ruling party’s backing. More than four out of five Hungarians are opposed to the overtime law, according to one survey.
“We want the prime minister to hear and meet our demands,” Laszlo Kordas, head of the Hungarian Association of Labor Unions, said.
Orban’s rejection of union demands risks blindsiding a premier focussed on helping nationalists take control of the European Union following the bloc’s legislative elections in May. It has already already galvanised a hitherto feeble opposition, whose divisions have been key for Orban’s political success since his return to power in 2010.
Opposition politicians have used the labour dispute as a springboard for other issues, including to call for an end to pro-Orban propaganda on public media and to demand action against corruption.