Czech bus drivers strike over budget cuts
By Peter Annear
PRAGUE — Members of the Independent Public Road Transport Union held a successful one-day strike on February 10 against proposed budget cuts by the government of the Czech Republic.
A reported 15,000 long-distance bus drivers in the republic joined the strike, estimated by the union to be 87% of drivers at the CSAD state enterprise. It was the first time the new unions have exercised the right to strike in this way.
The Czech government decided to cut by half this year's state subsidies for bus transport enterprises, from about US$107 million last year. The cut is almost certain to cause increases in long distance bus fares, though much of the population is dependent on this form of transport, and threatens job losses in the industry. In Slovakia, public transport continues to be supported by the republican government.
Three days after the strike, the government announced plans for a rise in fares and a 10% cut to the number of bus lines.
The strike got the full backing of the national Federation of Trade Unions, which covers 5.5 million workers federally.
A statement from the presidium of the Czech government said the strike could be understood "only as an expression of mistrust in the Czech government's ability to find a solution in time" to the perceived public transport problem. Czech ministers claimed the strike had political motives.
Drivers in Slovakia supported their Czech counterparts by placing leaflets in the windows of their buses.
Of the nine parliamentary parties and movements, only the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia took a positive stand towards the strike.
A spokesperson for President Vaclav Havel said the strike decision was rash. "The problems in one branch cannot be settled separately from the problems of the whole national economy", he said.
The independent leftist paper Rude Pravo commented that the badly needed social reconciliation was threatened by the government and the rashness of its economic policies.
If the government fails to find a satisfactory solution, the union is considering a further general strike of all public transport workers in April.