Around 30,000 trade union members from all over the Czech Republic rallied downtown in Prague on Saturday against a public finance reform proposed by the center-right government.

Brandishing flags, posters and balloons at Prague's Wenceslas square, the demonstrators called on the government to stop the reform which they said would only further polarize the Czech society.

The reform package, which is currently being discussed in the parliament's lower house, includes cuts to lower the budget deficit and prepare for the adoption of the common EU currency, the euro.

If approved, a 15-percent flat tax on personal income would be introduced in 2008 to replace the current rate ranging from 12 percent to 32 percent.

The corporate tax rate would be cut from 24 percent to 19 percent by 2010. The draft also includes cuts in social benefits, unemployment benefits, maternity leave payments and health care spending.

The final vote of the draft reform is expected in August.

The reform, if put in place next year, would further polarize the society and lead to an even smaller and better-off group of the rich, according to the Bohemian and Moravian Confederation of Unions (CMKOS), the country's largest union organisation.

"The reform's goals are quite different from what the coalition is trying to tell people," Milan Stech, CMKOS chairman and senator for the opposition Social Democrats said.

The government mainly wants to open the door to the privatization of public services, he said.

The unions believed that the planned changes in the tax, social and health areas would harm mainly families with children, pensioners and low-income employees.

"We would not get rid of the debt if we lower taxes, cut social expenditures and do away with social benefits such as subsidized catering for employees," said Josef Stredula, head of the influential union of engineering and metallurgic workers.

Besides the CMKOS, the protest was joined by a number of unions and other organizations such as the Patients' Association, the Council of Seniors, the Tenants' Association, the Communist Youth Union (KSM) and No To Bases group which opposes the planned U.S. military radar facilities on the Czech soil.

The Czech government said it will not meet the unions' demand for scrapping the planned public finance reform.

Source: Xinhua