There are no trains in Austria on Monday. Brewery employees are also downing their work. Trade strikes are threatening next weekend. The reason is the difficult wage rounds.
Wien. The negotiations for a new railway collective agreement failed on Sunday. As already announced, there will be a 24-hour Austria-wide railway strike on Monday. Negotiations will start once more on Tuesday at the earliest.
1. Why have wage negotiations escalated so much among railway workers?
The demands were too far apart. The union had recently called for an increase in the collective agreement and actual wages by 400 euros per month, the employers only wanted to pay 208 euros more plus a one-off payment of 1000 euros. According to employers, the offer of plus 8.44 percent is higher than all KV degrees in other industries this year.
For comparison: Employers and employees of the metallers have agreed on an average wage increase of 7.44 percent. In the public sector, the average increase is 7.32 percent. The employees point out that there are still 40-hour jobs with a net starting salary of 1,356 euros on the railway, for example on the night train. In times of record high inflation – in October the inflation rate was eleven percent – these employees would benefit particularly strongly from an increase of 400 euros.
