Social partners in Austria’s trade sector are due to begin the annual round of collective negotiations on 30 October in Vienna. As was the case with talks in the metal industry in September, demands from the trade union side are centred around concerns regarding the impact of the new law which allows normal working hours to be increased, without negotiation, to 12 hours per day and 60 hours per week. The GPA-djp union, which represents workers in the private sector, is worried about the repercussions on the health of workers, who are mostly female, in a sector where the Christmas period generally leads to a sharp rise in working hours and overtime. Among the demands from the union side are the implementation of measures for part-time early retirement as well as a sixth week of paid leave. Progress in the metal industry, a pilot sector in the country, indicates that negotiations this year will be strained.
Fears over 12-hour days. Social partners in Austria’s trade sector, in which 540,000 people work, 407,000 of which are employed, are to open annual collective negotiations on Tuesday 30 October in Vienna. While company bosses have said they want to focus on the issue of pay, the trade union representing private sector workers, the GPA-djp, is hopeful that a collective agreement could soften some of the anticipated effects of the new law on working time flexibility. The law came into force on 1
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