Hungary's former health secretary admitted why the Fidesz party destroyed occupational health services: the outgoing Orban government allowed industry lobbyists to dictate legislation

Hungary's former health secretary admitted why the Fidesz party destroyed occupational health services: the outgoing Orban government allowed industry to dictate legislation

[The original article is in Hungarian. This is a paraphrased automated translation with minimal edits.] ...

Hungary's former State Secretary for Health admitted in one sentence: the industrial lobby was able to dictate laws to the outgoing government.

The former State Secretary for Health, Péter Takács, visited Klikk TV, and during the interview, in the conversation between editor Dávid Trencséni, the former Fidesz government Takács [said] that he found the abolition of the mandatory occupational health examination of employees [in Hungary] pointless, and he opposed it, but the whole thing was of no use, as, according to Takács, “Industry lobbied for it, and the idea came to the government through SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises]."

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When the reporter asked him back whether he had not had so much power or strength even as State Secretary for Health, Takács again confirmed, "I had strength in many things, and I lost in this – because of the industrial lobby."

Takács thus acknowledged that capital interests directly controlled one of the most outrageous measures taken by the Orbán governments.

Hungary's compulsory occupational health examination, which was abolished by law at the end of 2023, was the last labour law measure in employment in industrial workplaces that significantly damage health, in the construction and service industries, which still provided some protection for employees from total ruin.

Although the existence of mandatory examinations alone did not guarantee the avoidance of accidents and permanent damage to health during employment, it represented at least one last fig leaf from the state in a system burdened with serious abuses.

In the last 15-20 years, the occupational health duties, which were previously performed by the state health service even in the case of private companies – and SMEs – have been outsourced to specialised private health companies for the vast majority of workplaces.

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In recent years, investigations have found that in several cases there was exceptional coordination between the private healthcare company performing the mandatory examinations and the employing company. At the end of 2022, for example, the doctor hired by a factory determined medical unfitness [of employees] at a time when the company was preparing for mass layoffs following a strike.

In addition, many illnesses and serious injuries by workers in Hungarian companies remained unreported.

This also protects the employer, as employers usually are obliged to pay for such illnesses ... These kinds of creative solutions were already systematic before the forced abolition of the mandatory examination – the Fidesz government, however, legalised situation [that left workers in Hungarian companies vulnerable].

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The system of mandatory occupational health examinations, which existed until the end of 2023, would have tried, in principle and on paper, to prevent the profit interests of entrepreneurs and the narrowly interpreted individual and group interests of employees from leading to a level of exploitation that is no longer humanly acceptable.

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In addition, the Orbán governments ... shaped regulations often to suit a particular industrial company, group of companies or lobby group.

One such example was the amendment to the law that came into force in January 2023, which allowed companies to order unpaid compulsory medical leave. This, too, was easily passed by the Fidesz-KDNP two-thirds majority.

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The abolition of the mandatory occupational health examination has always been suspect.

The problem was also indicated in a written report to the government and the public in 2018 by the Occupational Safety Management Department of the Ministry of Economic Development, which existed in this form at the time, in which they stated:

“In an international comparison, as in previous years, the reporting of occupational diseases and cases of increased exposure is unsatisfactory. The lack of reports clearly shows the conflicting interests of the employer, the occupational health service directly financially dependent on the employer, and in many cases the employee.”

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And now, in response to a simple question, Péter Takács himself has admitted that there is nothing too complex, complicated or mysterious here: when the business interest group speaks, most of the representatives and members of the Orban government obeyed, because there was a lot of money involved.

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Archived original [in Hungarian]