Industrial relations in posts and telecommunications examined

Industrial relations in the Austrian posts and telecommunications sector have developed in a dynamic way since market liberalisation in 1998. For employers, this has involved the rise of competition between firms in a new market. From the viewpoint of trade unions, it has primarily meant establishing collective bargaining in a new sector. Overall, the privatisation of the former state telecommunications and postal services monopoly has led to a significant change in industrial relations.

Telecommunications and most types of postal service were long organised as a state monopoly in Austria. The services covered by this monopoly were performed by the Austrian Postal Authorities (Österreichische Post- und Telegraphenverwaltung, ÖPTV), which was part of the public service sector. The ÖPTV was succeeded in 1996 by Post- und Telekom Austria (PTA), which is organised according to private company law. Both organisations cover(ed) both posts and telecommunications and the two areas are examined together here - indeed the NACE 'statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community' lists them both under NACE classification 64 ('post and telecommunications').

It is important to note that the range of services provided by PTA (and previously ÖPTV) exceeds the scope of post and telecommunications as demarcated by NACE 64. There are three main areas of services under the umbrella of PTA (and previously ÖPTV): postal services; telecommunications; and scheduled transport services by buses and freight transport by road.

Competition and liberalisation

PTA (and previously ÖPTV) has in recent years been exposed to competition in most of its areas of activity (as mentioned above, transport activities are not considered here). This competition from private companies affected postal services only in marginal areas (namely courier activities) before liberalisation, which abolished both the state's monopoly and ÖPTV's status as an authority.

The most important step in liberalisation was the 1997 law on telecommunications (Telekommunikationsgesetz) which opened this sector's market to private competitors. One key principle of this law is 'asymmetrical regulation', which facilitates market access for investors other than the well-established, former monopoly supplier. Next, liberalisation measures also affected postal services. The 1998 law on postal services (Postgesetz) opened up part of the market for letter post (concerning letters with a weight of more than 350 grammes). Full liberalisation of letter post will probably not take place before 2003. At the same time, however, the law obliges the PTA to maintain its postal services.

Liberalisation of markets was accompanied by the reorganisation of ÖPTV, which was transformed in 1996 from a state authority into a private-law company, PTA. The productivity of PTA is above the average in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, such that it outperforms most of the other countries' former monopoly suppliers.

Against this background of legal reforms, the telecommunications sector changed after liberalisation. Several companies - financed and set up as joint ventures of both domestic and/or foreign investors - acquired a license for mobile telecommunications from the authorities, and in 1999 there were three licensed operators of mobile telecommunications systems. With a market share of 58% of all people owning a portable telephone, Mobilkom (in which the PTA holds the majority of shares) was the largest operator. The market shares of the two other operators were 38% and 4%. In May 1999, a fourth operator was licensed by the authorities. There have also been investments in new telephone networks in addition to that of PTA. It should be noted that a notable number of publicly-owned firms are among these investors - hence, liberalisation of the sector does not necessarily mean privatisation.

Employment in posts and telecommunications

Employment in mobile telecommunications - the likely area of most employment growth in the telecommunications sector - stood at an estimated 2,000 persons in 1997/8. In the field of telephone networks, the vast majority of employees of (around 17,000) are employed by PTA, with employment in recently-founded companies marginal (around 200 employees at the end of 1997). Another branch of the sector which is of economic importance is cable TV and (private) radio activities - 273 companies providing such services and employing 350-450 persons are estimated to exist. Overall and including other services of minor importance in addition to these three branches, the telecommunications sector had an estimated workforce of about 34,700 in 1997.

As far as postal services are concerned, PTA has maintained its dominant position, although competition has grown in some fields such as parcel post. The fact that PTA was able to increase its volume of postal services by some 17% in 1997 compared with the previous year indicated that private competitors had obtained obtain merely niche positions in this branch. In 1997, PTA employed about 33,000 workers in the area of postal services. As a result of the still ongoing process of liberalisation and restructuring, the postal sector's labour market and industrial relations is in a state of flux which makes it difficult even to estimate its current employment.

The above data for telecommunications and postal services suggest that the entire sector employs approximately 68,000 workers, which represents no more than around 2% of total employment in Austria.

One of the most outstanding features of the sector's labour market is the co-existence of forms of private and public sector employment, the latter being most clearly manifested in the civil servants (Beamte), who are a heritage of the former state monopoly. As a part of the wider public service, posts and telecommunications shared the structure of public employment which is based on the distinction between private-law employees and public-law civil servants. These two groups differ in many terms of legal employment status, among which the principle of 'employment for life' applying to the civil servant is most important. In contrast to these differences in terms of employment, the two groups do not differ substantively in their qualifications and tasks. When ÖPTV was transformed into PTA, the former ÖPTV's civil servants retained their status. In 1997, the clear majority of PTA's employees (74%) still had civil servant status.

From the perspective of the representatives of organised business and labour, liberalisation as such has been the posts and telecommunications sector's most important issue during recent years. For employers, this has involved the rise of inter-firm competition in a new market. From the viewpoint of labour representatives, this has primarily meant establishing collective bargaining in a new sector.

Collective bargaining

A key side-effect on industrial relations which has resulted from liberalisation concerns the mode of collective employment regulation in general and wage-fixing in particular. Before liberalisation, almost all parts of the posts and telecommunications sector formed part of the public services, where from the formal point of view pay and working conditions are fixed unilaterally by the authorities (AT0005221F). The sector's employees were excluded from the right to collective bargaining, as all public sector employees are. However, in reality, a practice of de facto negotiations between the authorities and trade unions prevails in the public services. Before liberalisation, posts and telecommunications were part of this process, with the Union of Post and Telecommunications Employees (Gewerkschaft der Post- und Fernmeldebediensteten, GPF) being the sole representative of the sector's employees.

In parallel with the liberalisation of services, the right to collective bargaining was established in the sector. All posts and telecommunications employees are now covered by collective agreements (see below). This is mainly because the domain of Austria's principal employers' confederation, the Austrian Chamber of the Economy (Wirtschaftskammer Österreich, WKÖ), which is based on statutory membership, includes the liberalised services.

Employers' representation

Liberalisation has fundamentally changed the nature of employers and their representation in posts and telecommunications. Today's employers in the sector are not state agencies but companies. As noted above, this change in the legal framework for business was not accompanied by a correspondingly radical change in the type of ownership, since public authorities still play a role and recently have even acquired shares in the sector's other businesses. In comparison, a radical change did take place in the mode of employer association and representation.

Shifting posts and telecommunications from public services to the business segment of the economy was accompanied by including representation of the sector's companies in WKÖ's chamber system. Currently, the sector's companies belong to the WKÖ Federal Organisation of Telecommunications and Broadcasting Companies (Fachverband Telekommunikations- und Rundfunkunternehmen, FTR) which forms part of the Federal Transport and Telecommunications Section (Bundessektion Transport, Verkehr, Telekommunikation). In addition, the activities covered by WKÖ's Federal Organisation of Data Processing, Business and Management Consultancy (Fachverband Unternehmensberatung und Datenverarbeitung, FU) include data processing and data communication, which are difficult to distinguish from certain types of telecommunication services. Hence, there is some overlap between FU's domain and posts and telecommunications. FU is part of the WKÖ Federal Crafts, Trades and Services Section (Bundessektion Gewerbe). WKÖ's federal organisations represent their members vis-à-vis the authorities and conclude collective agreements for their members.

Trade union representation

With collective bargaining replacing (formally) unilateral state regulation of wages and working conditions following liberalisation, this modified trade union representation in posts and telecommunications as well. While GPF was the only representative of the sector's employees before liberalisation, the reform induced two other member unions of the Austrian Trade Union Federation (Österreichischer Gewerkschaftsbund, ÖGB) to try to achieve a firm footing in the newly emerging sector - the blue-collar Commerce and Transport Union (Gewerkschaft Handel, Transport, Verkehr, GHTV) and the white-collar Union of Salaried Employees (Gewerkschaft der Privatangestellten, GPA). GHTV could claim responsibility because posts and telecommunications is part of the larger scope of transport, while GPA's domain includes the entire private sector, to which posts and telecommunications shifted due to liberalisation. In practice, this meant that GPF's traditional membership domain was challenged by GHTV with regard to blue-collar workers and by GPA in respect of white-collar employees.

While GHTV failed to establish itself in the sector, GPA succeeded even though virtually all the sector's union members were affiliated to GPF at the time of liberalisation. This development can be traced to significant differences in the unions' bargaining capacities. In the case of GHTV, these capacities have been traditionally low as a result of its organisational weakness. By contrast, the GPA's bargaining capacities are comparatively high and this union's impact on collective bargaining in Austria is significant. Together and in cooperation with the blue-collar Metalworking and Textiles Union (Gewerkschaft Metall-Textil, GMT), GPA sets the going rate for pay-setting in all parts of the economy (AT9912207F).

GMT and GPA are the 'pattern-setters' among ÖGB member unions not only in quantitative but also in qualitative terms, in that since the mid-1980s they have concluded innovative collective agreements on working time and pay which have influenced bargaining in the other areas. In comparison with these bargaining capacities, GPF's experience with collective bargaining is very limited, given its character of a public sector union which is excluded from formal collective bargaining. Hence, GPF and GPA have distinct and at the same time complementary assets which are both essential to employee representation in the new sector: members in the case of GPF and bargaining capacities in the case of GPA.

First collective agreement

This situation at the time of liberalisation resulted in the conclusion of the first collective agreement in the liberalised sector in December 1997. This agreement was negotiated and concluded jointly by GPA and GPF on behalf of the sector's employees and by the corresponding federal organisation of WKÖ. The collective agreement is notable in that it does not differentiate between blue-collar and white-collar employees, for whom separate agreements are normally concluded in Austria.

It should also be noted that the agreement excluded from its scope the sector's former monopoly supplier - ie PTA and its companies. Although PTA's companies operating in telecommunications are members of WKÖ, PTA negotiates and concludes its own agreement with GPA and GPF. The legal background of this arrangement is that legislation which transformed the former monopoly supplier, ÖPTV, into the private-law company, PTA, also equipped this company with the right to conclude collective agreements. This arrangement is inconsistent with the general pattern laid down by Austrian labour law which generally confers the right to conclude collective agreements only upon employers' associations rather than single employers. As a result, WKÖ's sectoral organisation does not have a bargaining monopoly on the side of employers, in contrast to its counterparts in most other sectors.

Commentary

Although the posts and telecommunications sector has undergone significant transformations, the industrial relations actors have successfully adjusted themselves to the new conditions. Above all, the actors were able smoothly to transform a situation of state regulation into a system of free collective bargaining with encompassing coverage. This successful adjustment was mainly due to the encompassing membership domain of the peak associations of business and labour. The sectoral employer representatives are all under WKÖ's umbrella, while all unions involved are members of ÖGB. Regardless of this, this adjustment process was more difficult for the unions, since the sector's transformation has challenged both the traditional sectoral demarcations as well as the distinction between blue- and white-collar workers on which the structure of Austria's unions is based (Franz Traxler, University of Vienna).