Rebellious staff at state-run Czech Television called a strike on Monday to demand the resignation of their new director-general. Although the union said its staff will continue to broadcast regularly scheduled programmes, the strike was called to support colleagues who have been occupying Czech Television's newsroom and airing "pirate" newscasts to protest the December 20 appointment of Jiri Hodac as director-general.
State-owned Czech Railways will raise nominal wages by 5.5 percent next year under a collective agreement signed on Friday. In 2000 the railways raised nominal wages by 4.5 percent. Earlier trade unions had demanded an increase of up to 10 percent.
President Vaclav Havel has appealed for a return to basic and simple moral values in his traditional New Year address. He said that in a world, which seems increasingly confusing, certain values remain constant. Doubt and shock at what some people are capable of doing, the President said, can be a positive force, because they motivate us to try to make things better, and doubt itself springs from our sense of what is right and wrong.
(David Marek)