Socialists: Many health workers earning less in new employee status
Ildiko Borbely Bango told an online press conference on Facebook that the “irresponsible, forced introduction of the new employee status has been a great sin” of the government because it resulted in many workers quitting the health sector during the third wave of the coronavirus epidemic, a time “when the system was already at the brink of collapse”.
“Even those that stayed on have been cheated,” she added citing press reports about decreased salaries for nurses resulting from the lack of wage compensation following restrictions connected to the new employee status.
Ruling Fidesz refuses to provide money to hospitals so that they could pay allowances and hospital directors are forced to reduce such payments, she insisted.
She cited a recent survey by the independent health-care union showing that more than half of nurses are mulling plans to leave their profession.
She called on the government to restore the public worker status of health-care staff and start consultations without delay on a wage hike for nurses.
DK pledges higher pay for teachers
Gergely Arato, citing an assessment based on OECD figures, said that Hungarian teachers receive the second lowest salaries in the EU in comparison with other professionals. In Hungary, secondary-school teachers earn 70 percent of the average graduate salary, he said, adding that kindergarten and primary school teachers made even less.
Arato slammed the government for spending billions of forints on “hunting expos and such gentlemanly passions”, while teachers are “humiliated with paltry salaries”.
An opposition government would again make teaching an attractive career for young people and “reward those that train the next generations”.
