Opposition MPs to protest at Suzuki plant after walking out of parliament session

Opposition MPs walked out of parliament’s first 2019 sitting on Monday and said they would visit a Suzuki factory in Esztergom in the afternoon to protest against the December 2018 amendments to the labour code dubbed the “slave law”.

The government and ruling Fidesz planned to hold a “propaganda day” at parliament only to distract attention from reality, Socialist leader Bertalan Tóth told a joint press conference. The opposition will not allow the unity forged against the “slave law” to be destroyed and will make sure that the issue is not removed from the agenda, he added.

The unity of the opposition will also be demonstrated at the Suzuki factory which not only plans to raise the number of overtime hours but also to “trample on” the current regulations.

The Hungarian Suzuki company in early February laid off a worker just after he had been elected secretary of a newly formed trade union of metalworkers.

László Varju of the Democratic Coalition said that

protests against “the slave law” have been held throughout Hungary and 2.5 million people have expressed their opposition to the government’s actions.

Parbeszed co-leader Tímea Szabó said they would not listen to the lies that the prime minister and its government want people to “burden with”. She said 2019 would be a year of slaves and not the year of families as the government had promised.