Labour unions staged a day of protests and strikes across the Czech Republic on Monday to voice their opposition to the government’s package of cuts and austerity measures meant to keep the ballooning deficit under control.
Prime Minister Petr Fiala criticised unions for not negotiating and said his government was not ready to give in because the measures are “absolutely necessary”.
“The unionists protest because they don’t like the development in the Czech Republic under the current government,” Josef Stredula, the head of a major umbrella union organisation, told the crowd of several thousand.
Some 74% or over 7,200 nursery, primary and secondary schools across the country were either fully or partially closed Monday in the biggest such protest since the establishment of the Czech Republic in 1993, unions said.
Workers at hundreds of companies, including some state offices and major carmaker Škoda Auto, were planning to join the protests, mostly by stopping work for an hour or two.
The package is a compromise reached by Fiala’s five-party ruling coalition that took over after defeating populist Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and his centrist ANO movement in the 2021 parliamentary election.
The original article contains 449 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 58%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Labour unions staged a day of protests and strikes across the Czech Republic on Monday to voice their opposition to the government’s package of cuts and austerity measures meant to keep the ballooning deficit under control.
Prime Minister Petr Fiala criticised unions for not negotiating and said his government was not ready to give in because the measures are “absolutely necessary”.
“The unionists protest because they don’t like the development in the Czech Republic under the current government,” Josef Stredula, the head of a major umbrella union organisation, told the crowd of several thousand.
Some 74% or over 7,200 nursery, primary and secondary schools across the country were either fully or partially closed Monday in the biggest such protest since the establishment of the Czech Republic in 1993, unions said.
Workers at hundreds of companies, including some state offices and major carmaker Škoda Auto, were planning to join the protests, mostly by stopping work for an hour or two.
The package is a compromise reached by Fiala’s five-party ruling coalition that took over after defeating populist Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and his centrist ANO movement in the 2021 parliamentary election.
The original article contains 449 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 58%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!