(AP-ANSA) - BUDAPEST - Hungarian trade unions are protesting
a government plan to raise workers' allowable overtime from 250
to 400 hours a year and the relaxing of other labor rules to
offset Hungary's growing labor shortage. The government says
labor flexibility is needed to satisfy investors' needs, like
those of the German car companies whose factories help drive
Hungary's economic growth. Union leaders said Saturday that what
they call the "slave law" proposals are seeking to boost
companies' profits at workers' expense. Laszlo Kordas, head of
the Hungarian Trade Union Confederation, told several thousand
protesters that Hungarians were working "at Europe's lowest
wages." Reasons for the labor shortage include an aging
population, higher wages elsewhere in the European Union,
workers' low mobility within Hungary, and the government's
fierce resistance to immigration. (AP-ANSA).
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