Sunday, June 19, 2011

Transportation Strike

There was supposed to be a nationwide transportation strike on Monday, June 13th. However, the Prague Municipal Court banned the strike because the organizers failed to give the required three working day notice.

The unions organized the strike to protest a number of government education and health care reforms. The two biggest issues that have everyone riled up is a pension plan reform that would raise the retirement age from 65 to 69 and will level the VAT to 17,5% on most food and medicines.

The trade unions then moved the strike from Monday to Thursday, from 00:00 to 24:00. No trains ran at all across the country on Thursday. I wonder how much money this cost Czech Railways? Public transportation strikes (metro, trams & buses) were held in Prague, Brno, Ostrava, Opava, Ústí nad Labem and Zlín.

I originally planned on just working from home but it wasn't a complete shutdown in Brno. On Thursday, 4 trams, 4 trolleybuses and 3 buses ran in 10 minute intervals from 05:00-10:00 and again from 14:00-19:00. My tram line was one that was still operational so I just went in to the office.

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