Austria faces summer of transport disputes

Working time has emerged as the dominant issue in the Austrian road and air transport sectors over the summer of 1999, and a number of disputes have broken out with potentially major consequences. Lorry drivers are mounting a campaign of blocking roads whilst staff at Austrian Airlines are considering protest action in support of their pay claim.

May and June 1999 saw a number of disputes breaking out in the transport sector, with Austria potentially facing a summer of disruption on the roads and in the air.

Drivers in a bitter dispute

The Austrian Commerce, Transport and Traffic Workers' Union (Gewerkschaft Handel, Transport, Verkehr, HTV) staged a protest by about 800 lorry drivers on 5 June 1999 in an attempt to extract a better pay offer from employers. Between 09.00 and 11.00 on that Saturday morning, one of the access roads to Austria's largest shopping complex, south of Vienna, was blocked. Drivers currently earn ATS 79.50 gross per hour, and the employers are offering an increase of ATS 1.00. As the employers were unmoved, HTV organised a "family day" in Vienna on 12 June that included day-long entertainment, health checks, information and at noon a panel discussion on the working conditions of lorry drivers in which a Member of the European Parliament participated. The event was billed as an "alternative demonstration". Unless the employers make a substantially better offer by 19 June, HTV was to block one of the motorways across the Alps on 26 June. Road transport employs about 65,000 workers.

In reality, most lorry drivers are paid by the kilometre, and they are paid differential rates - ATS 1.10 per kilometre for the first 13,000 kilometres per month, but ATS 1.60 for distances above that limit. At an average speed of 40 kilometres per hour, 13,000 kilometres amount to 325 hours of work per month, almost twice a full-time monthly workload. The regulations permit eight to nine hours of driving a day and require an 11-hour break.

In the Austrian press, Neil Kinnock, the European Commissioner responsible for transport, is reported to have said that 2,000 lorry drivers were killed in 1998 in accidents due to exhaustion. However, the source could not be ascertained, and the figure varies considerably from the total number of 1,350 lorry drivers killed in accidents in 1996, quoted in September 1998 by the president of the Austrian Trade Union Federation (Österreichischer Gewerkschaftsbund, ÖGB). Neither figure counts the other victims of such accidents.

In 1987, lorry driving became, on a trial basis, an apprenticed occupation. This arrangement was formalised in 1992, though there are currently fewer than 10 apprentices. However, since 1987 about 16,000 active drivers with at least three years' experience have undergone the preparatory course of 264 teaching units of 50 minutes each and have passed the examination.

Airlines

Employers in the airline industry, employing about 9,200 workers (900 more than a year ago), are also engaged in negotiations with HTV over pay. The airline industry, grouped within the Austrian Chamber of the Economy (Wirtschaftskammer Österreich, WKÖ), at one point in May declared that a 1% rise would be the limit, whilst a trade union official was quoted as claiming a 3.5% minimum increase. Because collective agreements are concluded with each airline rather than sectorally, pay levels within the sector vary a great deal. Negotiations take place between the works council and management at each airline separately.

At Austrian Airlines (AUA), the national carrier, a 2.45% increase in the pay of the 2,500 ground staff was negotiated by HTV. The agreement was reached on 14 June 1999 and has been backdated to 1 May 1999. However, it is not final since it includes a clause that states that the ground staff's increase may not be less than the flight staff's. The roughly 2,000 flight staff are demanding 4.7% but would be willing to reduce their demand in exchange for a 50% overtime bonus. Currently they receive no overtime bonuses at all. Management has not yet made a detailed offer.

In a bid to restore company profitability, AUA staff had traded 15% of their pay in 1995 for an annual bonus pegged to the dividend paid out to shareholders. The 1998 dividend was 7%. Thus employees were paid an extra 70% of a month's pay in May 1999. In early May, demands as high as 5.8% were submitted on behalf of AUA staff in an attempt to regain some of the income lost in 1995. At the time, 11 May was named as the deadline after which working-to-rule and protest meetings would be considered. So far none of this has taken place.

Tyrolean Airways, acquired by AUA in 1997, is a comparatively low-cost regional carrier with a fast-expanding network and an excellent reputation. The works council is seeking a 6% pay rise for ground staff, while some 500 flight staff are asking for a 10% increase on top of whatever the flight staff at AUA are awarded.

Still more difficult is the situation at another AUA subsidiary. Lauda Air came into the AUA fold in 1997. It employs about 1,400 workers, up from 1,280 in 1997. Flight staff here operate on the basis of a works agreement, a much weaker form of deal than a collective agreement concluded with the trade union. Management is maintaining that the works council's proposals for a collective agreement would cost ATS 196 million per year when the airline makes a profit of only ATS 60 million a year (or ATS 50 million, as in 1998).

Disputes at Lauda centre mainly on working time. The trade union declares that pilots work up to 270 hours per month, which contravenes the terms of the Working Time Act (AT9702102F) - though this Act does not apply to flight staff. This exemption is currently being challenged in the courts, as it may be unconstitutional. The Office of Airspace Security states that pilots rarely exceed the permitted 100 hours in the air.

Small carriers, such as Rheintalflug or Air Alps Aviation, do not have collective agreements either. At Rheintalflug, HTV had reached an agreement to adopt the terms of the Tyrolean collective agreement but could not convince the other trade union involved, the Union of Salaried Employees (Gewerkschaft der Privatangestellten, GPA), to go along.

Transport union changes

Recent months have also seen some changes in transport sector trade union structures at national and European level.

Some 350 of Austria's 2,000 or so flight attendants have formed the Austrian Flight Attendants' Association (AFA) in response to the particular problems facing this group of workers. At AUA, their basic starting salary is ATS 15,000 gross per month, at Lauda ATS 11,600. Lauda has an age limit of 30 for newly recruited flight attendants. Flight attendants changing employers have to begin again on the starting salary. AUA offers a diploma and higher pay after three years' service and an exam. AFA's main complaint is that the flight attendant is not a recognised profession in Austria - officially, they are untrained workers. About 300 new flight attendants are being sought by AUA and 100 by Lauda.

Meanwhile, on 14-15 June 1999, more than 300 delegates from over 30 European transport trade unions met in Brussels and founded the European Transport Workers' Federation (ETF). ETF groups unions from the EU, EEA and central and eastern European countries, representing some 3 million workers from across the transport and fishing sectors. The new structure brings together the former members of the Federation of Transport Workers? Unions in the European Union (FST) with European affiliates of the International Transport Workers? Federation (ITF), thus ending a rather confused situation where two bodies grouped transport unions in Europe. ETF will function both as the European regional organisation of ITF and as the transport industry federation of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). Wilhelm Haberzettl, the chair of the Austrian Railway Employees' Trade Union (Gewerkschaft der Eisenbahner, GdE) was elected president and stated that, now more than ever, transport unions from across the continent need a strong, united voice in Brussels: "Enlargement of the EU, the proposed trans-European networks and the continuous threat to employment in the transport sector by unfettered liberalisation require new and imaginative responses by the trade union movement."

Commentary

The confrontation between lorry drivers and their employers could potentially become Austria's most disruptive industrial dispute for many years. Hauliers are also under pressure from the government, which has recently issued a directive banning shipments of dangerous goods between Friday and Sunday and has curtailed lorry traffic on major roads on Saturdays. In the airlines, the Lauda dispute is bound to simmer on, whilst at AUA an agreement is likely to be found sometime during the summer. (August Gächter, IHS)