On Monday 26 September Austria’s metallurgy sector unions presented their demands at the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber (WKÖ) starting off the country’s traditional autumn round of collective negotiations. Unions for 180,000 metals workers from six branches and 500,000 retail workers will now set about their negotiations. For the first time in Austria’s union history, the metals unions’ opening gambit was to indicate by how much they were looking for salaries to increase, and they called for 3%. Following a 1.5% rise in 2015 Christian Knill, president of the FMMI (Machine and Metal Industry Federation) told the press that such a rise would be “unthinkable.” No real disputes however are on the horizon.
On Monday 26 September, both presidents of the MM metals unions, Rainer Wimmer (Pro-GE) and Rudolf Wagner (GPA-dip) presented their ‘list’ of demands for metal sector workers. In short this boils down to two major demands: a 3% annual pay rise and the option to negotiate free time at company level. The second part would allow workers to exchange part of their pay rise for more free time. Both union leaders see circumstances as being ideal for making these demands as inflation is low, productivi
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