The repeal also scrapped the rule which doubled pay for Sunday work and restored the 50% bonus rate that was in place before the Sunday shopping restrictions came into effect.

Zoltán Lukács, the Socialist Party’s deputy leader, said that because the party does not want to burden employers, the bill prescribes that employers only have to pay social contributions on a 50% bonus rate. The bill regulates contributions in a way that ensures that employees do not lose out on benefits, either. Under the bill, employees could not be obligated to work more than two Sundays a month.

Further Sunday work would be subject to a written agreement between the employer and employee to ensure the employee a legal guarantee.

The regulation would apply to every sector in which employees work on Sundays. Lukács said the ruling Fidesz party reduced the 100% bonus rate to 50% as “an act of revenge” on the people who did not agree with the Sunday shopping restrictions.

He said the law’s repeal should not automatically have had to mean restoring the 50% rate, arguing that the shopping restrictions and supplementary pay were regulated by two different laws.

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MTI photo: Kovács Tamás