Budapest transport staff to stage one-day strike on Friday

Employees of Budapest public transport operator BKV will stage a 24-hour strike from midnight on Thursday until midnight on Friday to protest against the company's plans to cut services and lay off workers, reports hirszerzo.hu. Unions are also protesting for better working conditions and a written promise that leaders of the BKV will start talks in order to solve the company's financial problems.

Wednesday afternoon, the city of Budapest failed to accept Budapest transport company BKV's proposals to cut costs, which made its employees' argument for a strike untenable, wrote index.hu. However, the company did not promise to the unions to withdraw these proposals, so the strike will be go ahead as planned, strike committee spokesman Gábor Nemes said.

The BKV was required to submit a detailed "book of suggestions" (paraméterkönyv") proposing cost-cutting measures, predominantly reductions in the frequency of services, which the city - the owner of the company for which BKV provides the service - would find acceptable. These proposals were found by the city to be lacking the requisite detail and were therefore refused. According to index.hu, the rejection was based more on technicalities rather than practical reasons, which it said it had already alerted its readers to late last week.

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