After no agreement was reached again on Thursday in the negotiations regarding the increase in the trade collective labor agreement, tough measures are now being prepared. The union announced combat measures just before the Christmas shopping season.
The third round of collective labor agreement negotiations for retailers ended without an agreement on Thursday. In the evening, the union announced regional works council conferences for next Wednesday with the decision to take fighting measures. At the same time, a new round of negotiations has been agreed for November 21.
Chamber tries to lay bricks
Rainer Trefelik, Chairman of the Federal Trade Department of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce, pointed out in a broadcast after today’s round of negotiations that employers had made an offer for a two-year collective labor agreement (KV).
This would have resulted in a PE increase of 3.1 percent for 2025 – the relevant inflation rate is 3.8 percent. For 2026, employers then offered the inflation rate plus 0.5 percent as salary increases – but only if the relevant inflation rate was below two percent.
Offer the union a ‘provocation’
The GPA union’s chief negotiator, Veronika Arnost, described the offer in a broadcast that evening as a “provocation”. The offer is too low and “would mean that all the risks of the current crisis would be passed on to workers”. Because all forecasts for the coming year would predict an inflation rate well above 2 percent.
Control measures “not our wish”
“It was not our wish that combat measures would take place during the Christmas business,” Arnost said. However, further measures must now be decided by the works councils next Wednesday.
“The most recent work meetings have impressively demonstrated that employees expect more and are willing to fight for a fair deal,” GPA trade department chairman Martin Müllauer wrote in the union message.
Trefelik: Too high a positive would be “overwhelming”.
Trefelik regretted that the union demanded a higher degree than the employers offered. But “such a move would greatly overwhelm domestic trading companies in the current situation, which is still characterized by declining sales and rising costs. “Given the many closures and bankruptcies we are already seeing in the retail sector and the associated job losses, this cannot be in the union’s best interest,” Trefelik said. The WKÖ also advocates a fundamental reform of the trade collective labor agreement.
Negotiations could continue
Trade association director Rainer Will lamented in a press release that “the union still does not recognize the challenging situation in the retail sector and shows little willingness to compromise, despite generous concessions from employers to compensate workers for much of the inflation. ”
The KV applies to more than 430,000 commercial employees. Last year the negotiations were also particularly difficult and lasted until after Christmas.
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.
