The threat that employees at the Austrian Federal Railways (Österreichische Bundesbahnen, ÖBB) would have to pay unemployment insurance contributions, backdated to 1995, is about to be defused by an act of Parliament. The Union of Railway Workers (Gewerkschaft der Eisenbahner) had been threatening strikes in the event that pay deductions should commence from August 1997, as seemed likely at first.
While recent contentious issues at the Austrian Federal Railways are being defused, new ones have arisen in late summer 1997, leading to renewed threats of industrial action. Reorganisation, cost-cutting, and the impending works council elections are at the core of the conflict.
The threat that employees at the Austrian Federal Railways (Österreichische Bundesbahnen, ÖBB) would have to pay unemployment insurance contributions, backdated to 1995, is about to be defused by an act of Parliament. The Union of Railway Workers (Gewerkschaft der Eisenbahner) had been threatening strikes in the event that pay deductions should commence from August 1997, as seemed likely at first.
The background to the dispute was that the ÖBB Act, in effect since 1 January 1995, had made the ÖBB a separate company outside the federal budget, but had also maintained the protection from dismissal for employees hired until 1994 as civil servants. As a consequence, the law had also upheld their existing exemption from unemployment insurance contributions, but this was found unconstitutional (by a court ruling published in July 1997 - AT9707125N). Management and the trade union joined in delaying the payments order for the contributions which was to be issued by the Insurance Corporation of Railway Workers (of which the trade union's chair is also the president). Now the Government has decided to defuse the issue by changing the ÖBB Act with the aim of delaying the liability for unemployment insurance contributions until 2000. The governing coalition has a sufficient majority in Parliament to change the constitution.
Meanwhile, however, the trade union has issued threats of industrial action over other issues. It alleges that the continuing piecemeal reorganisation of the company in the absence of an overall statement of purpose disconcerts the workforce. Part of the reorganisation is the stated goal of reducing the workforce from 55,000 now to less than 50,000 by 2002, together with a 25% increase in efficiency. The workforce has already been cut by about 9,000 since 1993.
Works council elections will take place in a few weeks, and this also has to be taken into account in the current difficult climate.
Eurofound doporučuje citovat tuto publikaci následujícím způsobem.
Eurofound (1997), Industrial action threatened on the railways, article.
