APPEAL OF THE JOINT PUBLIC SERVICE STRIKE COMMITTEE TO EMPLOYEES IN PUBLIC SERVICE AND TO HUNGARIAN CITIZENS

We have to take this difficult step!

We always sit together with the representatives of the government aiming at agreement, and we have made many concessions from our pay claim for 2007. We have not been successful in reaching agreement because the representatives of the government have not given us any guarantees as regards the fulfilment of our claims.

We have not lost rational judgement!

We are fully aware of the state budget deficit – the heavy situation facing the state household – as we live it every day while working at our workplaces. This was the reason why we have come to realise that our claims can still be fulfilled – just at a lower level than we previously imagined.

But, at the same time, we are also very aware that public service must not be stripped bare! In pay matters for this year, the government is showing an iron hand in circumstances in which public services and their employees are, under the title of reform, otherwise also being exposed to a series of slaps in the face. Put together, these exceed our capacity for tolerance.

It is unacceptable that, in 2007, a significant majority of public service employees are facing cuts of more than 10% in their real pay because the tax and contributions burden is rising, as is inflation and living costs.

The planned drastic restrictions on the public service pay system are unacceptable. These allowances are not privileges but a legal offset for the greater boundaries placed on, and the plenty of duties required for free of, public services employees.

It is unacceptable

that groundless personnel cuts, which have no professional rationale, will cause the complete collapse of public services. They are dishonest Hungarian citizens who will lead people to believe that the service potential in health care, social provision, education and culture, as well as public administration, will be improved with fewer personnel, lower pay and poorer working conditions.

It is unacceptable

that, since last months, there has been a non-stop campaign discrediting public service employees which has bordered on defamation. Responsible government leaders call us on occasions privileged; at other times, they have sought to ridicule us as ‘moorland frogs’ or ‘people in a glass cage who work only occasionally’. The same government factors increasingly want us to work for less money with fewer people.

NO! We are neither sheep nor moorland frogs with whom everything can be accommodated. Furthermore, our tolerance has its limits.

We would rather work than strike. But our circumstances make impossible the establishment of the necessary minimum requirements and, therefore, we do not have any alternative. The only way to reach agreement seems to be by the use of force.

Due to the inflexibility of the government, the
Joint Public Service Strike Committee
announces, for the first time since the political system change in 1989,

a two-hour nationwide warning strike

for February 21st 2007