Six-hour rail strike, protests in Hungary (2nd Roundup)

Nov 21, 2007, 21:01 GMT

Budapest - Thousands of trade unionists attended a demonstration outside Hungary's parliament on Wednesday to top off a day of industrial action that saw railway workers disrupt the transport network with a six-hour strike.

The railway workers were striking primarily against the closure of 38 regional railway lines. However, some bus drivers, teachers and electricity workers also staged short strikes to protest changes to the health insurance and pension systems.

The railway strike, involving over 10,000 employees and affecting over 1,000 trains, followed on from previous two-hour warning strikes.

Many train stations were deserted until the strike ended at 1100 GMT, with large numbers of commuters opting to take time off to avoid disruption.

Trains were still running behind schedule on Wednesday evening, and Hungarian Railways said that services would not normalize until Thursday morning.

Some schools were also closed, workers walked out briefly at Budapest's international airport and many bus services were cancelled for two hours.

The day ended with the demonstration, organized by trade union umbrella organisation Liga and the Large Families' Association.

Main centre-right opposition party Fidesz said it supported the demonstration and called on party activists to attend, but Liga rejected the overtures, saying it did not want the demonstration to become politicized.

The demonstration was also marred by minor clashes with police after the majority of the crowd had left.

A few hundred right-wing protestors who had joined the protest threw beer bottles and rocks at officers, but a wall of riot police successfully dispersed them into the surrounding streets.

The evening protest was aimed in particular at changes to the pension and health care insurance systems.

The government earlier this month submitted a bill to replace the current centralized health insurance fund with many regional funds, in which private companies can invest.

Opponents, including the Chamber of Hungarian Doctors, say that this will disadvantage Hungary's poorest, leaving them without health care.

The healthcare reform has also caused problems in the ruling coalition, with Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany's Hungarian Socialist Party squabbling with the junior Alliance of Free Democrats over the final details of the reform.

While the coalition is not expected to split over the issue, it is just another problem for a government struggling with low popularity.

The Hungarian Socialist Party swept back into power April 2007, becoming the first government since the changeover from communism in 1989/1990 to win consecutive terms.

However, the honeymoon did not last long. The government introduced unpopular austerity measures to cut the deficit, which at 9.2 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2006 was the highest in the European Union.

Then the leak of a tape on which Gyurcsany admitted lying about the economy provoked protests and riots.

The government has yet to recover, and a recent poll by the Szazadveg Foundation found that only 14 per cent of voters would plump for the Socialists if an election were held now. A poll by another company a few weeks ago put this figure at 15 per cent.