Thousands block bridge in Hungary for teachers' strike

BUDAPEST - At least 10,000 Hungarian students, teachers and parents blocked a Budapest bridge before filling a main square outside parliament on Wednesday in support of teachers fighting for higher wages and teachers who were sacked for protesting.

Teachers have launched an I want to teach campaign, called for civil disobedience to demand higher wages, a solution to a deepening shortage of teachers, and the right to strike.

Wednesday s rally, which started with students forming a chain stretching for miles across Budapest in the morning grew into the biggest anti-government demonstration since the re-election of the prime minister Viktor Orban in April.

Protesters carrying banners saying Do not sack our teachers and For a peek of the future, look at the schools of the present crammed a Budapest bridge near parliament, blocking traffic amid light police presence.

Lujza Lukacs, a 14-year-old student at the blockade, said he knows a lot of really cool and great teachers who don't get enough money for the work and love they put into their profession.

Trade unions had called for a nationwide teachers' strike on Wednesday. After a nationwide teacher's strike in January 2022, the government restricted strike action.

Several teachers were dismissed last week for joining the protest at a Budapest secondary school.

This is completely unacceptable and absurd, said Andras Farkas, another student at the demonstration, criticising Orban, who studied political philosophy at Oxford, for ignoring the cry for help from teachers.

Orban, who was re-elected for a fourth consecutive term on April 3, faces a mounting challenge as the economy is heading for a recession next year, with inflation in double digits and the forint plumbing successive record lows versus the euro.

The government said it would hike teachers' wages once the European Commission releases E.U. In Hungary, recovery funding has been withheld due to a rule-of- law dispute.

On Monday, parliament speaker Laszlo Kover, a senior member of Orban's ruling Fidesz party, told HirTV that teachers' wages were lagging average earnings but that strikes were not the way to reach a solution.

I am sure that strikes won't help. As everyone knows that the level of wages is in no way related to the quality of teaching in the short term, Kover said.