Largest blue- and white-collar unions intend to merge

In October 2001, the two most powerful affiliates of the Austrian Trade Union Federation (ÖGB), the Union of Salaried Employees (GPA) and the blue-collar Metalworking and Textiles Union (GMT), announced that they intend to merge. However, the plan drew criticism, primarily from within GPA, not least because the merged union will have a lower proportion of women members than GPA.

On 8 October 2001, officials of the Union of Salaried Employees (Gewerkschaft der Privatangestellten, GPA) and the blue-collar Metalworking and Textiles Union (Gewerkschaft Metall-Textil, GMT) met to decide on a merger of their organisations. They announced that they intended to establish a single large union that covers a total of 503,306 members, which is more than one-third of the total membership of the Austrian Trade Union Federation (Österreichischer Gewerkschaftsbund, ÖGB).

The issue of restructuring the representation of blue- and white-collar workers into a single trade union has permeated debates within ÖGB since its formation (AT9806192F). However, the GPA-GMT proposal came as a surprise to the president of ÖGB, Fritz Verzetnitsch, as well as its remaining affiliates. Only one week previously, the ÖGB presidium had decided to delegate discussion on a less radical reform, which included a reduction from 13 to eight member unions (AT0104212N), to ÖGB's working committee on organisational issues. Both Rudof Nürnberger (the chair of GMT) and Hans Sallmutter (the chair of GPA) had been represented in the presidium.

While GPA has the largest number of female members of any ÖGB affiliate (123,614) and ranks third among ÖGB unions in terms of its proportion of women members (43.1%), women in the metalworking sector account for only 18.9% (40,934) of all GMT members. The proposed merger has attracted criticism from within GPA, not least because it would significantly weaken women's position compared with the current situation in GPA, since the percentage of female members in the merged union would stand at 32.7%. At present, the 13 member unions of the ÖGB cover a total of 1,442,393 - see the table below

* Blue-collar workers unions.

Source: Tätigkeitsberichte der ÖGB Frauenabteilungen.

As predicted (AT0104212N), the reform initiative launched earlier in 2001 by the president of the ÖGB failed, as former initiatives had. The reason is that these initiatives did not meet the interests of GPA and GMT. Their coming amalgamation will significantly affect and change overall union structure in Austria. It is not an exaggeration to say that the new union will become the 'centre of gravity' of ÖGB. This is not only because of their large share of total union membership. In addition, GPA and GMT have cooperated intensively in the course of collective bargaining and have set the pace for bargaining by the other unions (AT9912207F).