Business News

Business roundup: Škoda Auto union seeks wage hikes for companies linked to car producer; Cabinet backs welfare payments for laid off OKD workers; One week paternity leave approved; Globus planning billion crown investments in Czech outlets.

Škoda Auto union seeks wage hikes for companies linked to car producer

Photo: Škoda Auto

The KOVO union which represents many workers at the Czech Republic’s biggest carmaker, Škoda Auto, says that it is pressing for sub-contractors and other companies closely linked to the car maker to make adequate offers of pay rises to their employees. The union’s move follows its success in agreeing an 11.2 percent pay hike over two years at the car maker. Letters calling for collective negotiations to start with the company AB Facility, SAPE, and ISS Facility Services were due to go out this week according to the union newsletter, the ČTK agency reported. Škoda Auto announced a 6.5 percent rise in profits to a record euros 708 million last year.

Cabinet backs welfare payments for laid off OKD workers

The government has approved special welfare payments for workers laid off by the bankrupt mining company OKD. Under a plan announced on Wednesday by Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, they are to receive between 7,000 and 8,000 crowns a month for a period of between three months and five years, depending on years of service and age. The payments will go to all staff at OKD, not just miners. The company has around 10,000 employees in a region – Northern Moravia – with relatively jobless rates.

Government approves week’s paternity leave

Photo illustrative: Radio Prague International

The Czech government has approved a week’s leave for men who have become fresh fathers, the prime minister, Bohuslav Sobotka, announced on Wednesday. If men subsequently go on paternity leave they will receive 70 percent of their base salary, which is the same percentage currently received by women on maternity leave. The cabinet vote had been delayed after Finance Minister Andrej Babiš came out against the plan. It will now go before the Chamber of Deputies.

Globus planning billion crown investments in Czech outlets

The hypermarket chain Globus has announced it is planning to invest four billion crowns into its Czech outlets in the next three years. The plans entail a modernization of its present stores, an expansion of the network and the setting up of a new e-shop. Last year Globus’s sales in the Czech Republic reached 23 billion crowns and the hypermarket chain is aiming to increase them by another 10 billion crowns. Globus came to the Czech Republic twenty years ago and operates 15 hypermarkets in the country.

Sale of Fairtrade products in Czech Republic stagnating

Photo: archive of Radio Prague

The sale of Fairtrade products in the Czech Republic has reached a plateau after several years of growth, according to the head of Fairtrade Czech Republic and Slovakia Hana Chorváthová. In 2015 Czechs bought 200 million crowns worth of Fairtrade goods, mostly coffee and chocolate. Coffee accounts for 61 percent of all Fairtrade products sold in the country, followed by chocolate, tea, sugar and biscuits.