The governing coalition in Austria has agreed to take two steps in an attempt to reduce the widening income gap between women and men. First, there will be a constitutional amendment permitting measures intended explicitly to improve the career prospects for women. The second measure will enable works councils to compel employers to negotiate career enhancement programmes for women. Both changes are due to be put to parliament in April 1998.
Parallel to employment-centred equal opportunities measures laid down in Austria's national action plan on employment (AT9803172F) - drawn up in response to the November 1997 EU Jobs Summit initiative - is a series of further initiatives being taken by the Government to remedy obvious inequalities. These are meant to address primarily the widening income gap between men and women (AT9710136N). Perhaps the most important is an amendment to the Constitution permitting measures and policies that improve equal opportunities for women. The wording is as follows: "Federal, provincial and local government is committed to the equality of men and women. Measures towards the equalisation of opportunities for women and men, especially through the removal of existing inequalities, are permissible."
Another legal measure also agreed is a change to the Works Constitution Act (Arbeitsverfassungsgesetz). An obligation will be imposed on employers to negotiate career enhancement programmes for women with the works council, if the latter so wishes. This is a very limited measure, since many small enterprises do not have works councils or have works councils that do not have the capacity to negotiate complex matters of this kind. Stricter measures, like the change to the regulations on tendering that had been sought by the Ministry of Women's Affairs (Bundesministerium für Frauenangelegenheiten) (AT9801157N), could not be agreed between the governing coalition partners. The Ministry had proposed favouring companies which have equal opportunities policies, even if their tenders were up to 20% more expensive than the rest, provided that this did not conflict with regulations on EU competition. The actual agreement in effect relegates the career and incomes issue to plant-level agreements. This is an unusual degree of decentralisation for incomes policy in Austria, where sectoral agreements are the norm.
The above measures were agreed in a parliamentary subcommittee which will report to parliament on 15 April 1998. The coalition commands enough votes in parliament to pass constitutional amendments.
These issues have received some coverage in the media. For instance, in March a conference in Graz, Austria's second city, was reported at which companies from Germany like Lufthansa, Bayer and Höchst were cited as examples to be followed for having so-called "total e-quality management". Hewlett-Packard Austria was also presented. Emphasis was placed on the need for accurate job evaluation as the basis for fair wages. This is a demand the trade unions have also been making, together with a call for research into the exact sources of income differentials. By contrast, in March the press cited a year-old case in the federal civil service where a woman who may have been the better qualified candidate for promotion was passed over in favour of a man.