Tyrolean daily newspaper, editorial, edition of November 15, 2023. By ALOIS VAHRNER. "Strikes and the social partner crisis".

2023-11-14 21:00:37

Innsbruck (OTS) – Unfortunately, what is feared is becoming more and more concrete: During the autumn wage round, the conflict over wage increases threatens to escalate into a wave of strikes. Austria’s much-vaunted social partnership is questioning itself.

Difficult wage rounds had often been predicted, as had a hot autumn. Weeks of fanfare during the metal workers’ wage round, which was always highly regarded because of its signal effect, was just as much a part of the questionable ritual as several marathon rounds of negotiations – before an agreement was then reached in what was usually the fourth or fifth round in the dead of night, which experienced observers probably almost gave up anyway would have predicted the tenth of a percentage point.
But this wage round is actually the most difficult in decades. This is due to the highly explosive cocktail of inflation, which has recently fallen somewhat but is still far too high, and at the same time a massive economic downturn. Austria is currently in recession with the prospect of only a slight improvement next year.
From the union’s point of view, the push for the highest possible conclusion is just as understandable as the simultaneous warning of the economy about a new avalanche of costs. Both companies and employees are not to blame, but rather victims of inflation. The problem: Europe lost further competitiveness compared to Asia and America last year due to the energy turbulence as a result of the Ukraine war, and Austria, which is at the top of the inflation field, lost even more.
Even if many people may not like to hear it: prosperity is not a given and money does not grow on trees, but must always be earned anew in international competition. Even if the state in particular has been pretending since Corona with huge packages worth billions as if it wasn’t the case. Especially in such a time of upheaval, when many things are in question, a functioning social partnership would be required to stand together and find unconventional solutions. Like at the beginning of the Corona crisis in 2020, when a lightning agreement was reached in the first round of negotiations.
In the past, social partnership was often praised as a figurehead and co-guarantor of the Austrian post-war economic miracle. In many cases rightly so. There were difficult times at the beginning and then a long period of sharing annual gains. Now the opposite threatens, the crumbling of prosperity. Are the social partners also prepared for this? The former ÖVP finance minister Hans-Jörg Schelling said years ago: “Social partnership is dead. She just doesn’t know it yet.” The fact that she has maneuvered herself into a serious crisis as a problem solver has become obvious these days.