The really big collapse did not materialize for the time being, but commuters had to muster a lot of patience and nerves on their way to work on Monday morning. There are currently huge delays in road traffic, especially in the metropolitan areas of the provincial capitals and in Vienna. Train traffic in Austria has been at a standstill since midnight due to the currently interrupted KV negotiations. ÖBB boss Andreas Matthä apologized to all customers for the inconvenience. At the same time, the board of directors of the largest company in the industry that is currently on strike warned Tuesday of possible failures.
“We tried to move the trains on Sunday to where they should be on Tuesday morning, so that the operation can start more or less stable. But I do not want to exclude that there are irregularities with one or the other train,” Matthä said in the Ö1 “Morgenjournal”, especially with regard to freight traffic.
From the CEO’s point of view, the 24-hour warning strike is “disproportionate.” Because the employer side has made “honest efforts” to meet the demands of the employees. “Ultimately, we cannot give more than what is on the stock exchange,” Matthä emphasized, and in addition to the material damage to his company, he also spoke of a major damage to his image. He estimated this much higher.
With inflation at 11 percent, railroad workers are demanding wage increases averaging 12 percent. After employer representatives only bid 8.4 percent on Sunday, negotiations for the roughly 50,000 rail workers broke down over the weekend without a new meeting for the time being.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
