Fidesz pledges new rules on Sunday labour in September

Budapest, May 2 (MTI) – The opportunity to draw up rules regulating Sunday working conditions will arise in September, the ruling Fidesz group leader said on Monday.

After talks with retail trade union KDFSZ on the need to set working conditions, Lajos Kósa told a press conference that the government was hamstrung by a plan by the opposition Socialists to seek a referendum in connection with Sunday shopping. He insisted that the current laws cannot be changed unless the Constitutional Court throws out a Socialist referendum or the Socialists themselves abandon the initiative seeking guarantees that the Sunday shopping ban would not be reintroduced.

At the talks, the KDFSZ submitted a petition signed by 27,000 retail employees, demanding that rules for working conditions — such as those governing compensation and working hours — be drafted and implemented following the government’s decision to scrap Sunday shopping restrictions.

It was under pressure from the opposition that Fidesz overturned its own law which had introduced the restrictions.

Kósa said that some 250,000 people working in the retail sectors had been “especially negatively” affected by the current state of affairs, which he insisted were down to Socialist policies.