Warning strikes in Ansfelden, meetings at Metro: gloomy mood, closed shops

The meetings and warning strikes were scheduled until 10 a.m. Affected were Hofer, Forstinger, dm, Lidl, Billa Plus, Adler and NKD in the Ansfelden business park. There were warning strikes there. At short notice, it was also decided to hold staff meetings in the Metro branches in Linz and Wels. The mood on Monday morning was not only cloudy because of the weather, but also among the employees. Some shops in Ansfelden were closed because of the protest, some were operated with replacement workers.

Shortly after 8 a.m., Markus Parzer, works council chairman of Billa and Billa plus in Upper Austria, asked a woman to understand that she could only shop in the business park from 9:30 a.m. onwards. “During Corona, we were applauded because we worked. Now we’ve been forgotten,” he said, explaining why people continue to take to the streets before Christmas for a fair wage.

The dense fog didn’t stop five women from unrolling a banner in front of a drugstore chain in the morning: “We are fighting for our health insurance,” it said. Only the hairdresser in the shop is open because it is a service provider, an employee explained. To make her demand heard, she blew a whistle.

“We don’t want to strike the customers, but the employers,” says Wolfgang Gerstmayer, managing director of the GPA in Upper Austria. Many retail companies would now be ready to conclude collective bargaining negotiations, but “individual representatives are not,” says Gerstmayer. There was also a strike in the Shopping Nord shopping center in Graz.

Ansfelden
Image: TEAM FOTOKERSCHI/WERNER KERSCHBA (APA)

Video: Fritz Dittlbacher about the warning strikes

The inflation underlying the discussions from October 2022 to September 2023 was 9.2 percent. The union recently proposed a socially staggered agreement between 8.58 and 9.38 percent – an average plus 8.96 percent. Chamber of Commerce Chairman Rainer Trefelik: A salary increase of 8.2 percent would have been conceivable, but calculations would have shown that more was “not affordable”. Under the union’s proposal, more than 80 percent of employees would receive an increase above rolling inflation, Trefelik told the OÖN. “It’s not a social graduation, it’s cosmetics. We don’t want a cosmetics degree.” On Saturday night, the sixth round of negotiations was broken off after nine hours.