Budapest - Thousands of public sector workers took to the streets in the Hungarian capital on Saturday to protest against a pay freeze and the abolition of end-of-year bonuses. Many streets in central Budapest were closed to traffic in the morning as public sector workers vented their anger over the proposed cutbacks, which are part of the government's cost-cutting budget bill.
At Heroes' Square, one of Budapest's best known tourist landmarks, several thousand police, firemen, customs officers, prison guards and soldiers gathered in the late morning before marching toward parliament.
Altogether, members of some 30 unions, representing workers from different branches of the public sector, braved icy rain to demonstrate at several points around the city before filling the large square in front of the parliament building.
Teachers' unions handed over a separate petition at the Education Ministry, demanding that pay should not drop in real terms in 2009, and that in the medium term it be increased at least to the European Union average.
Leaders of the strike committee handed a petition to a state secretary at the Prime Minister's Office.
The abolition of the traditional "thirteenth month" bonus payment enjoyed by all public sector workers has provoked outrage in Hungary. The country's teachers, police, emergency services and medical workers are among the lowest paid in the EU.
The cutbacks were added to a new draft of Hungary's 2009 budget bill on Tuesday. Hungary has already been through two years of an austerity drive as the government reins in a budget deficit that ballooned to 9.2 per cent of gross domestic product in 2006, the highest level in the EU at the time.
Hungary's unpopular minority socialist government, led by Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, is now under even greater pressure to stop spending beyond the nation's means.
At the end of October the country was offered a 20-billion-euro emergency loan by the International Monetary Fund, the EU and the World Bank amid fears of Hungary being unable to meet its debt obligations and the collapse of its currency, the forint. The loan was conditional on Hungary applying a very strict budgetary policy.
"There's nothing left to take. The abolition of the thirteenth month wage will reduce salaries by 8.3 per cent. If you factor in inflation, people are losing a sixth of their salaries," said Andras Folddeak, head of a union representing librarians and community centre workers, at Saturday's protest.
Union leaders threatened a nationwide strike on January 12 if their demands for the return of the "thirteenth month" salary payment and the withdrawal of the pay freeze are not met.
