Austria : social partners agreed on the 60-hour week

The federal economic chamber (WK,) the Austrian trade union confederation, the federal workers' chamber and the agriculture chamber presented, on Thursday May 3, 2007, an important agreement on the flexibilization of working time. Starting in 2008, social partners will be able to negotiate working time up to 60 hours a week and twelve hours a day. (Ref. 070399)
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With the agreement on the flexibilization of working time, presented on May 3, 2007, in Vienna, Austria is celebrating its reborn “social partnership” (Sozialpartnerschaft.) the agreement plan is indeed seven years’ old. However, talks were stuck during all the years when the conservative chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel was heading the government. “The agreement is an eloquent example, which shows that the companies’ competitiveness requirements and the need of a social security are compatible,” E

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