In Vienna, on 29 March, Austria’s banking sector’s social partners fourth meeting came to a close with the partners managing to find a compromise over renewing the sector’s collective agreement that expired at the end of March. A 1.24% wage rise was negotiated for the 75,000 workers in the sector. Employers had no other choice than to accept union demands to establish a ‘labor foundation’ for the sector. Against a backdrop of comprehensive restructuring, the unions had, nonetheless held the setting up of the labor foundation, which serves as a legal framework for the upcoming social plans, as a precondition for any agreement to go ahead.
A labor foundation as a prerequisite. Austria’s banking sector is doing quite well. In 2015, the country’s banks made €3.7 billion in profits. Alongside this the 2008 Euro financial crisis triggered a comprehensive rationalization in the sector, including fewer agencies and 5,000 job losses out of a workforce that currently counts some 75,000. Experts expect this trend to continue. At the end of 2015 Ewald Nowotny, president of the central bank estimated that over the course of the next four to
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