President Ivan Gasparovic met with representatives of the automotive industry in Slovakia on Tuesday. The debate focused on the Labor Code draft awaiting parliamentary approval later this month. Representatives of carmakers in Slovakia see several controversial points in the draft. They pointed to the limits it sets for overtime work at risky workplaces or limits on night work, which they say could harm operations of manufacturing plants. The president gave them assurances that he would discuss these points with the cabinet representatives who engineered the draft.
President Gasparovic appreciated that the car industry is one of the biggest employers in Slovakia. According to his spokesman, Marek Trubac, the head of state admitted that Slovakia made a mistake in not preventing the decline of vocational schools, which resulted in the current lack of qualified laborers for the industrial sector. The president, however, hopes for the revival of this type of schools, helped along by large industrial concerns such as Volkswagen Slovakia, PSA Peugeot Citroen and Kia. Currently, 70,000 people work in the automotive industry in Slovakia, and this number should rise up to 100,000 workers by the end of 2010.
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