But what’s the Wage Union for?

Jobbik’s Family Day held in Budapest City Park on 20th August marked the beginning of the party’s campaign to collect statements of support for the wage union. The event featured a roundtable discussion with Márton Gyöngyösi, dr. Andrea Varga-Damm, Dániel Z. Kárpát and László György Lukács on such issues as how the wage union could be implemented in practice if the necessary number of signatures is collected and why the Fidesz government’s current attempts to patch up the dying Hungarian economy and healthcare system were not enough.

Talking about their special areas, each Jobbik politician explained what the wage union initiative would mean for their respective fields.

Márton Gyöngyösi pointed out that Jobbik’s wage union initiative was the first to declare the objective that the living standards of the Eastern European member states, including Hungary, must converge to those of Western Europe.

Giving a brief summary, Mr Gyöngyösi explained how the initiative was able to reach the phase of collecting statements of support, then he talked about what was going to happen if the one million signatures were all collected. As he put it, although the citizens’ initiative does not bind the Union in itself, but if enough people stand behind the project referred to by Gábor Vona as a “battering ram”, it will have a significant force that may result in an internal reform of the EU.

Mr Gyöngyösi also pointed out how mistaken those were who thought that western countries were not interested in a wage union: a key reason why British citizens voted for Brexit was the social tension caused by the cheap Eastern European labour, and France and Austria were also forced to seek out regulatory options to solve the problem. Jobbik’s politician explained that the EU could not be successful as long as it was divided by East-West and North-South income gaps and added that western countries were clearly aware of that.

In his opinion, Western European people also understand that low wages are the core of the problem but they have a different approach to it. As an example, he mentioned the fact that IG Metall, one of the largest German trade unions had already opened offices in the towns of Kecskemét and Győr to struggle for proper wages for the Hungarian workers of the German car manufacturers, so that these people would not seek employment in Germany.

Mr Gyöngyösi emphasized that we could not solve global problems on our own but the big-business-centred economic policy and approach that destroyed Hungary in the past 20 years could indeed be replaced by a mechanism that supports Hungarian small and medium enterprises, and a reformed EU cohesion policy could be a guarantee for that. Adding that any country which puts its citizens in intellectual and physical misery has no future, the politician pointed out that the Hungarian government was doing just that by depraving healthcare and education. That is why Jobbik would invest the thousand billions of HUF from cutting the subsidies of multinational companies into these two areas, Mr Gyöngyösi concluded.

Andrea Varga-Damm explained that the wage union could also reduce the gap between men’s and women’s wages as well as the east-west wage gap within Hungary, thus paving the way for a political solution in our country.

Jobbik’s MP candidate emphasized that the problems mentioned must be solved and regulated in national competency, which requires the largest opposition party getting in government and implement its economic programme. In Dr. Varga-Damm’s view, the EU regulation can be reformed and reshaped from within so that it would not matter which party comes in government later since they could not hinder the process of economic and wage development. Referring to the Hungarian governments’ total insensitivity to the matter of Hungarian wages, she called it absurd that a Euro-sceptic party had eventually had to turn to the EU bodies to have any progress in this issue. She added that healthcare and education were in the greatest need of a payrise but the necessary money must be produced by the economy. That is why these are the two primary target areas to put in order, which requires bridging the wage gap dividing Hungary.