One million Czech workers protest against government reforms

The ongoing tensions between the trade unions and government – which already lasted one year – escalated into one of the biggest strikes in Czech history. In June 2008, more than one million workers took part in a strike organised by the country’s largest trade union organisation. The strike resulted in widespread chaos, especially in health and transport services. However, there is no sign of the government abandoning its reforms.

On 24 June 2008, a one-hour warning strike was launched in protest against the government’s reforms (CZ0806039I). According to the Czech-Moravian Confederation of Trade Unions (Českomoravská konfederace odborových svazů, ČMKOS), which organised the strike, some 985,000 of its union members took part in the protest, along with other employees from various other trade unions and regions. Some trade union organisations decided not to take part in the strike, supporting the protest symbolically instead. The strike represented yet another attempt to force the government to reassess the contested parts of its reform package (CZ0803019I, CZ0805039I).

Widespread impact of strike

The strike had the greatest impact on the country’s healthcare and transport services. About a third of healthcare professionals in the Czech Republic took part in the strike, while others showed their support, for example by putting signs in offices or on their uniforms. Hospitals functioned according to their weekend schedules, and only acute patients were treated. Healthcare unions decided to hold a one-day protest, especially in response to the planned transformation of university teaching hospitals to joint stock companies.

Public transport came to a halt for one hour in most of the country’s big cities. In the capital city of Prague, an unorganised drivers’ strike took place, whereby drivers stopped their vehicles as a mark of protest. However, due to safety concerns, the Prague metro decided not to interrupt its services, despite metro workers’ original plan to stop operations for one hour. Meanwhile, Prague’s major inner-city thoroughfare (magistrála) was blocked by members of agricultural trade unions using bails of straw, which sparked criticism from Prague’s Mayor, Pavel Bém.

Dozens of taxi drivers in Prague also blocked access to the city’s airport. As a result, passengers had to walk 200 metres to get to the airport. However, air traffic was not interrupted and additional check-in staff were put on duty to ensure that passengers did not miss their flights.

Strike participants

The Engine Drivers’ Federation of the Czech Republic (Federace strojvůdců České republiky, FS ČR) was the only trade union out of the country’s eight railway unions to take part in the strike. While management at Czech Railways (České dráhy, ČD) strongly criticised the strike, the engine drivers considered the protest as a legitimate way to voice dissatisfaction with the government reforms. At 13.00 on 24 June, 80% of regional and long-distance trains stopped for over an hour. ČD estimated that the stoppage resulted in losses of CZK 7.7 million (about €311,597 as at 2 October 2008) and is considering claiming damages from FS ČR. Other railway unions came to an agreement with ČD’s management and the Ministry of Transport of the Czech Republic (Ministerstvo dopravy České republiky, MD ČR), which promised to lessen the impact of the reforms on railway workers. Union members thus postponed any strike plans until the end of September 2008.

Public institution employees, dissatisfied with their public sector salaries, also joined the strike. Services were interrupted for an hour by employees of the National Library of the Czech Republic (Národní knihovna České republiky, NK) and the National Museum (Národní Muzeum), along with employees of certain government offices and those working in a number of the country’s castles and chateaux. School unions only offered their ‘symbolic support’ to the strike, so that students would not be affected by the protest in any way; nevertheless, teachers had already organised a day-long strike calling for salary increases at the beginning of June (CZ0805019I).

Employees of some private companies also went on strike.

Reactions to strike

Employer organisations condemned the strike action. According to the Czech Chamber of Commerce (Hospodářská komora České republiky, HK ČR), although the strike was in protest against government reforms, it also caused harm to entrepreneurs.

However, according to the President of ČMKOS, Milan Štěch, the strike was highly successful and met its original objective, which was to express dissatisfaction with the government’s reform package. The fact that the trade unions have greater support from citizens than the government does is supported by public opinion surveys: according to the Centre for Empirical Research (Středisko empirických výzkumů, STEM), 45% of Czechs found trade unions to be trustworthy, whereas only 28% held the same opinion of the government.

Nevertheless, the Czech Prime Minister, Mirek Topolánek, deemed the strike to be political in nature and as an initiative which was commissioned by the opposition; as a result, along with other members of the government, the prime minister did not give the protest much weight. The government’s justification for rejecting the strike is the lack of unity among citizens in supporting the protest organised by the trade unions; instead, it sees the strike as an attempt to mainly promote the interests of the opposition party the Czech Social Democratic Party (Česká strana sociálně demokratická, ČSSD). However, ČSSD Party Leader, Jiří Paroubek, insists that the strike is a strong signal to the government to modify its reform measures.

Hana Doleželová, Research Institute for Labour and Social Affairs (RILSA)