[rayiner]

Under the law, overtime hours may not be counted as overtime until a calculation is done over the full reference period. But the article makes it seem like employers can get away with not paying the base wage for those extra hours until three years later. That is false.

The three year reference period also can only be used in a collective bargaining agreement. (Otherwise it’s four months.) So you’re not talking about an individual negotiating with the company under threat of losing her job. It’s the union negotiating with the employer. You’re saying even that isn’t enough—it’s slavery unless the law prevents the union from negotiating a higher reference period. That’s propaganda.

[metafex]

Not all workers have a union. And the current trend in Hungary is to take away more and more workers rights. A law is quite toothless if it's not implemented that way.

Example for workers rights: Currently unemployed people get benefits for some time and after that the state will employ them (see közmunka) for less than minimum wage. In practice, what happens is that some companies previously employed workers with minimum wage, let them go and re-employed them for a lower wage via the state. This in turn creates an incentive to keep those workers in this perpetual state, because it's less desirable to employ them directly. (And no, they don't get any more money from the state or anything to match the loss of wage)

[rayiner]

> Not all workers have a union.

The three year reference period doesn’t apply to those workers. If there is no union, there is no collective bargaining agreement, and without a collective bargaining agreement the maximum reference period under the law is 4 months (similar to the rest of Europe). As to hours, the new Hungary law is not crazy out of line with that of other countries, especially the more market-oriented/capitalist European countries. The Netherlands and Denmark have no annual overtime limit. In the Netherlands you can be asked to work up to 60 hours per week. In Denmark it’s 48 hours. Norway has a limit of 400 hours by agreement. The new Hungary law works out to being the same as Norway, similar to Denmark, and less than the Netherlands. Austria has an extremely low limit (60 hours). Maybe that’s a good idea and maybe it’s not. But people in Norway aren’t “slaves.” Calling more liberalized, but still within the mainstream, labor regulations “slavery” is propaganda. And it’s propaganda to try and make readers think workers are being told to work for free.