North Moravian Romanies being retrained, allegedly avoid work

About 20 Romanies from Vsetin are currently learning to pave streets and plant flowers and trees, but they show a high sickness rate, Jana Zvonickova, from the town’s Technical Services company, told CTK today.

She said the situation was the same in previous retraining courses part of which is practice with the Technical Services.

Zvonickova said that many Romanies fall ill at the moment when they are to work. Besides, they know well that they face no penalty if they present a sick note, always for a brief period, from a doctor.

Vsetin was catapulted to the centre of media attention when its then mayor Jiri Cunek (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL) had Romany rent-defaulters moved from the centre to new container-like flats on the town’s edge and a few families to dilapidated family houses elsewhere in Moravia last year.

Later last year Cunek was elected senator and KDU-CSL chairman. He has been deputy prime minister and local development minister since January.

The government position of Cunek, accused of corruption, has been further affected when he made statements about Romanies that some call xenophobic while far-right extremists welcome them.

Fifteen men were initially included in the Romany retraining programme. The theoretical part is now followed by work in the streets, but only three of the 15 retrainees allegedly worked last week, today six came.

The course trainees will be partly paid from European funds. Vsetin wants to organise further courses.

"If they do their work well, we will sure seek further jobs for them which will require further money for wages. That si why we are preparing further applications for European subsidies," deputy mayor Lubomir Gajdusek (KDU-CSL) said.

Vsetin has striven for Romany integration for several years. It has gained a subsidy of almost four million crowns from the EU for the relevant project.

Some 1500 people were unemployed in Vsetin, a town with more than 30,000 inhabitants, and unemployment rate was around 9 percent in March.