Modest pay deals in Austria

Recent pay settlements in Austria have continued the modest trend established by the metalworkers' agreement (see Bargaining Report November 1999). On 14 January post office workers agreed a 1.6% increase on basic rates and 1.5% on actual pay. The deal runs for 12 months until 1 January 2001 and covers some 34,000 employees. The rise is slightly less than that for the 19,000 employees of the main telecommunications business Telekom-Austria, who agreed a 1.7% increase for lower grade staff, with 1.5% for higher grades again from 1 January. Finance workers have agreed a 1.1% increase in basic rates from 1 February for 12 months. This had been foreshadowed in the 1999 agreement, which provided for an increase on top of forecast inflation of between 0.0% and 0.7%.

Inflation is forecast to be 0.5% in the third quarter of the year so the union has got a 0.6% increase on top. At present inflation in Austria is running at 0.9% (November).