"Save a few buses, trams and suburban trains public transport is currently non-existent in Budapest. The all-out strike was called by the workers of the Budapest Transport Company (BKV) for the first time in the company's history.The first vehicles are to roll out of the garages shortly after 13:00 CET, but public transport is not expected to be back to normal before late afternoon.
BKV's management refused the unions' proposal for “skeleton services" on Sunday, thus not even night services are put in use today.
BKV's last proposal to unions was a pledge not to lay off 300 workers, as earlier planned, but in exchange it demanded unions not to call a strike until 31 August. If financing woes were to be resolved later on, the strike moratorium would have been extended until 31 December 2010. The unions said this was unacceptable.
BKV plans to reduce services and the strike was called as a response to that, as workers feared layoffs would ensue. Originally BKV expected the changes to have the company HUF 6 billion, but the latest plan is on savings of HUF 2 bn “only".
The Budapest Municipality is asking for HUF 18.5 billion from the state to solve the financial crisis at BKV.
BKV's employees wanted written guarantee from the management or the municipality that they would still have a job in the second half of the year and that there would be resources to pay their salaries."
Source: Portfolio Online Financial Journal
07.04.2008