On 13 April, many Hungarians woke up tired from the previous night’s victory celebrations but hopeful for a better future, following the defeat of the Viktor Orbán government after 16 years in power. Walking the streets of Budapest on my morning commute, I passed a mountain of trash left over from the election festivities and noticed the municipality’s cleaning personnel, who did not seem to share the same joy visible on so many other faces. While the Western media reflected on Orbán’s authoritarian rule and celebrated Péter Magyar’s promises of distancing Hungary from Russia, a “return to Europe,” and anti-corruption mechanisms, one question that lingered largely unaddressed was how Orbán’s 16-year rule had affected the Hungarian working class — and what awaits them in this new era.

The Orbán Model

Fidesz’s economic model was one of internal contradictions: an embedded neoliberalism that embraced neoliberal principles and values while still relying on state institutions and regulations to pursue counter-market strategies. Since 2010, Orbán framed economic policy around a “work-based society” and “workfare instead of welfare” — the state should push people into employment rather than expand social support. This approach helped Hungary raise employment sharply: the working-age employment rate rose by 20 percentage points between 2000 and 2024, reaching about 75 per cent — among the highest in the EU.

While the Orbán government presented this as a national success story, it warrants scrutiny. Like many neoliberal policy programmes, it was often achieved through tighter welfare rules, reduced protection for the jobless, and stronger pressure on low-income workers to accept whatever jobs were available. These policies significantly reduced the poverty-alleviating impact of cash transfers by restricting the availability of social benefits and lowering their value. One major consequence was the severe curtailment of disability benefit eligibility, leaving tens of thousands of former recipients with reduced or no support, often following unfair assessments. Approximately half a million long-term unemployed citizens currently receive no social benefits at all. Wages in the increasingly extensive workfare programmes were set below the statutory minimum wage, further depressing the incomes of those living in deep poverty.

The government highlighted and celebrated significant minimum-wage growth over the long run, claiming that the basic minimum wage more than doubled compared with 2010, making it one of the fastest rates of increase in Europe. Although Hungary’s minimum wage did rise sharply under Orbán, particularly in the last decade, high inflation repeatedly eroded its real value. Many workers experienced wage growth on paper but not in their weekly shopping baskets, as food and rent prices more than doubled since 2015. Moreover, wage growth did not automatically translate into stronger labour power: Hungary’s labour market remained heavily shaped by low union density and fragmented bargaining, together with dependence on foreign investment and manufacturing jobs that offered workers limited leverage. Rising wages arrived in a system where workers were often weaker at the negotiating table than the government’s celebratory “full employment” language implied.

The clearest labour-rights turning point came with the strike-law changes introduced in late 2010 and applied from 2011. Those changes required agreement on “minimum services” before strikes could proceed; if employers and unions failed to agree, labour courts could intervene — a provision that unions argued made strikes far harder to organise and easier to block. Subsequent reporting on teacher and public-sector strikes described the resulting system as one of the most restrictive in Europe, with minimum-service rules and court delays effectively deterring collective action.

The most notorious confrontation came in 2018, when parliament expanded annual overtime limits to 400 hours, allowing employers to demand far more extra work and, in some cases, to delay overtime payment. Protesters dubbed it the “slave law,” and it became a rallying point precisely because it crystallised a broader feeling that the government was siding with employers in a labour-short economy. The political significance matched the legal change: the law transformed labour rights into a mass public issue and exposed how hollow trade-union power had become after years of erosion.

Tisza and the Future of the Working Class

If Orbánism governed the working class through discipline, selective welfare, and symbolic relief, a Tisza government would likely begin from the opposite political promise: normalisation. Péter Magyar’s rise has been built less on a fully articulated social project than on the claim that Hungary can rejoin Europe’s political mainstream, cleanse itself of corruption, and restore a state that functions more predictably. That matters for workers too. A less arbitrary state, cleaner institutions, and a more credible relationship with the European Union would likely improve general living conditions. But the crucial question is whether normalisation would improve the environment in which wages, public services, and labour protections are negotiated — and whether anti-Orbán politics automatically becomes pro-worker politics. So far, the answer appears to be no.

Tisza’s economic message is noticeably more reformist than redistributive, centred on anti-corruption and administrative competence and aimed primarily at reassuring investors, Brussels, and middle-class voters. A Tisza government could nonetheless matter materially for workers in several ways. First, it may seek to raise disposable incomes through tax relief, particularly for lower and middle earners — a politically attractive strategy for Tisza because it can be framed as pro-family and pro-work without forcing a direct confrontation with employers. The party manifesto already signals a progressive tax reform that would reduce income tax for those earning below the median wage. Second, Tisza is likely to place considerably more emphasis on public services than Orbán’s camp has done in recent years, with the programme promising to overhaul health care, education, welfare, child protection, and public transport. This could have genuine importance for working-class life, since the quality of those services determines how much of a worker’s wage is actually usable.

At the same time, Tisza does not appear to be offering a labour-centred break with the economic model built under Orbán. The party programme signals a desire to minimise unnecessary state intervention, support small firms, and create a predictable business climate — a technocratic, pro-investment stance that will not by itself address the already weakened conditions of workers and trade unions. Tisza’s widely celebrated pro-EU orientation could also carry risks for the working class, because it would likely mean a tighter fiscal path and pressure to cut social spending. Hungary’s budget deficit has hovered around five per cent of GDP for several years, with S&P Global warning that the election winner would need to rein in social spending to shore up public finances amid a weak economy. A Tisza government would probably prioritise unlocking billions in frozen EU funds by meeting rule-of-law conditions — which could boost investment in health care, education, and transport — but only if it also meets EU fiscal targets and stabilises the debt ratio. Analysts suggest that Tisza would likely narrow the deficit toward 3.5–4 per cent of GDP over time to meet euro-adoption criteria, which would require trimming some of Orbán’s signature family benefits, pension supplements, and utility subsidies.

Tisza’s approach to trade unions and labour law remains one of the least defined parts of its platform, leaving organised labour sidelined in the anti-Orbán mobilisation. Notably, no major party — including Tisza and Fidesz — agreed to meet with unions despite their demands for dialogue during the election campaign. Hungarian trade unions repeatedly called for talks on wages, collective bargaining, and reversing the 2018 overtime law, but received no commitments from Tisza or other opposition parties. Péter Magyar’s public speeches and the party’s manifesto have not explicitly promised to repeal the overtime expansion to 400 hours or to restore more accessible strike rights.

Tax relief, anti-corruption mechanisms, and stronger public infrastructure will all improve the conditions of the working class relative to the Orbán era. But tax relief is not the same as labour power. It can ease household budgets without altering the fact that many Hungarian workers remain trapped in low-value manufacturing jobs, vulnerable to employer pressure, and dependent on an economic model shaped by foreign capital and weak bargaining institutions. A few more forints in take-home pay do not automatically restore the collective capacity to demand better conditions. The most consequential question is whether Tisza can move from anti-regime rhetoric to a credible social settlement. If it simply replaces Orbán’s patronage state with a cleaner technocratic one, workers may find that they gain far less than the election-night mood suggested.

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