The new regulations would allow employers to reduce weekly rest time and compensate for it later in a single installment. This would in effect raise the 40-hour workweek to 48 hours. According to a statement issued by the country's Federation of Chemical, Energy and General Workers' Unions (VDSz), the new rules would eliminate the daily work break, oblige employees to work six days instead of five days per week, increase the maximum amount of overtime from 144 hours to 300 hours per year, reduce the weekly rest period by two hours, and considerably expand the definition of seasonal work.

Government officials in Hungary, a deformed workers state, are promoting these proposals in a bid to join the European Union in 2003 or 2004.

"I came here so that the government would not approve an amendment which hurts employees," said a 50-year-old worker from a spinning factory in Miskolc, in northeast Hungary, who attended the protest, to a Reuters reporter.

"In several workplaces within the chemical industry, the weekly working time is 36 hours," said VDSz president Gyorgy Paszternak. "The employers encouraged by the government proposals, decided to increase weekly work times to 48 hours. So in these cases working hours will increase by more than 30 percent.... But wages will remain the same." Parliament is to debate the proposed legislation at the end of March, a final decision is expected in mid-April.
 
 
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