Political situation

Two days before the start of the autumn bargaining round in the metal industry and mining sector in earnest on 3 October 2006, general elections took place in Austria on Sunday, 1 October 2006. The oppositional Austrian Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) celebrated an unexpected, if narrow, victory and thus evicted the senior partner of the centre- right government , the conservative Austrian People´ s Party (ÖVP) after six years from power. Chancellor Schüssels´ ÖVP saw its support drop by eight percent on last elections four years ago to 34,2 percent of the vote, compared to 35,7 percent for the Social Democrats. The extreme right Freedom Party (FPÖ) came third with 11,2 percent and the Greens grabbed 10,5 percent. As a coalition between SPÖ and Greens is thought to be unlikely and SPÖ ruled out any coalitions with the extreme right Freedom Party (FPÖ) and the Alliance for Austria´s Future (BZÖ), who got a 4,2 percent vote, SPÖ-leader Gusenbauer is expected to start negotiations on forming a grand coalition with the ÖVP.

Start of the autumn wage bargaining round

The traditional opening of the annual autumn bargaining round in the Austrian metal industry took place on 27 September 2006, when the joint list of demands of the trade unions´ bargaining team (as usually consisting of representatives of both the white-collar Union of Salaried Employees-GPA- and our blue-collar Union of Metal-, Textiles and Food Workers-GMTN-) was presented to the employers.

This year, the joint negotiating team has been for the first time headed by the recently elected new GMTN-President Erich Foglar and the Chief-negotiator for the white-collar GPA, Karl Proyer.
Our list of demands includes demands for increases in collectively agreed minimum and effective wages/salaries, increases in collectively agreed additional payments and reimbursements as well as increases in apprentices´ remunerations, reflecting the positive economic situation. In addition, improvements regarding extended individual rights for training are on the agenda of non-wage demands.

The employers on their side stressed their demand for further flexible working time regulations beyond the already collectively agreed. Moreover, they suggested a flexible pay scheme , taking into account the individual companies´ profitability when calculating wage increases. In the future, they emphasise, collectively agreed wage increases should only set off the rate of inflation. Additional pay for employees should be made contingent on profitability at individual company´ s level. To underline their demand, they pointed out to the results of a study among the companies of their branch-unit, showing sometimes huge differences in performance between the individual companies. Our negotiating team argued that during the last decades of bargaining the trade unions´ have always taking into account the average performance of the respective companies when drafting their demands for wage increases.

Economic situation

Not only the survey, presented by the employers, but also the overall macroeconomic situation indicates a positive economic development. GDP is expected to grow by at least 2,6 percent in 2006 , the highest rate since 2000. While exports and investments in machinery and equipment improve , private consumption does not show any sign of revival .The jump in oil-prices is hardly giving rise to the inflation rate, which remains 2006 and 2007 at a low 1,7 percent level. Though unemployment is slightly declining, the situation on the domestic labour market will not improve even in economic upswing. Compared to last year the unemployment rate dropped due to additional training measures for unemployed by 14.000 persons and remains at a total of 256.000 jobless. Productivity (GDP per employee) will increase by 1,4 percent in 2006; by 1,2 percent in 2007.

First bargaining round on 3 October 2006

After this first exchange of positions, negotiations started in earnest for some 160.000 employees in the metal industry and mining sector on 3 October 2006. During the first round, discussion focused on the assessment of the economic situation and the drive from the employers´ side for further working time flexibility and a flexible pay scheme. Our negotiating team stated an openness for flexible working time measures which take into account workers´ interests, but rejected unilateral attempts to extend working time without compensation. An amendment of the traditional wage bargaining principle in Austria by abandoning the pay-setting productivity criterion and thus replacing the existing sector-level bargaining system by company-level arrangements was also vehemently rejected by our team.

From the trade unions´ side the demand for a one-week paid training leave was put forward as a key demand.

The highly diverging positions between the employers´ side and our unions´ negotiating team during the first round let already expect tough and probably protracted negotiations.
Negotiations on 3 October 2006 were interrupted without any tangible result in the evening hours and will be resumed on 12 October 2006. For 13 October 2006 works council conferences are foreseen in all regions to inform about the current state of play in the bargaining round.

Manfred Anderle