Final Word from Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Signs at protests in Prague and other university cities yesterday in favor of more funding for academicians said in Czech, "No more cheap labor." The ČMKOS labor union used the same slogan starting in 2015, but it had mainly blue-collar workers in mind. ČMKOS union boss Josef Středula told HN in 2017 that we must extract ourselves from this cheap-wage situation and cannot have the goal of remaining a low-cost country. Yet Handelsblatt quoted Chair Klaus Zellmer of Škoda Auto last week as saying that Škoda's biggest advantage within Volkswagen is its cost-efficiency. He didn't mean just the obvious blue-collar wage advantage. "Sources in the company say that an hour's development work at Škoda's main plant in Mladá Boleslav costs about a third of the hourly rate in Wolfsburg," Handelsblatt reported. Yesterday's protest suggests that if the CR wants to become a higher value-added economy, employers might have to add more value to the paychecks of their white-collar workers. [ Czech Republic professors teachers demonstrations Group VW ]