Hungary
The KKDSZ culture worker's union delivered a petition with 3000 signatures to the ministry of culture on 22nd January calling for immediate negotiations on pay. The petition was the initiative of employees of the Fine Art Museum and was taken up by KKDSZ. Some workers in the sector have not had a pay rise for over 10 years and 80% of qualified staff have to survive on only EUR 580 a month (gross).
The KKDSZ culture workers' union has launched a petition highlighting low pay in the sector and plans to hand it to the minister of human resources on 22 January, the national day of culture. The union will highlight the contradiction of government claims that national culture is important while failing to increase pay for museum, library and other culture workers for over 10 years or engage in proper collective bargaining. The union is planning a number of events in Budapest and other cities. EPSU send a message of solidarity.
EPSU affiliates KKDSZ are holding a demonstration to protest the unacceptable low level of pay across the culture sector and the lack of any pay increase for their members for over 10 years.
More than 24 million workers on low wages in the EU would get a pay rise if trade union proposals for the EU’s draft Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages are accepted. The ETUC is calling for a specific threshold to be included in the directive which would mean no statutory minimum wages could be set below 60% of the national median wage and 50% of the national average wage in each Member State that has a legal minimum wage. At the moment, the European Commission has only included the threshold in the draft directive as an indicative guide. ETUC Deputy General Secretary Esther Lynch said: “A
