No agreement was reached in the fifth round of commercial negotiations on Thursday evening either. The GPA union told the APA that they did not want to accept the employer’s offer of an 8 percent increase in salaries without a social scale. The union has announced rallies for Friday.
According to WKÖ trade chairman Rainer Treflik, employee negotiators recently reduced their demand from 9.4 percent plus 15 euros to 9.4 percent.
Video: No agreement in the 5th round either
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The union has now announced a rally on Vienna’s Reumannplatz for Friday morning at 10 a.m. At 11 a.m. they want to demonstrate on Schillerplatz in Linz. The union had previously announced that if the 5th round of negotiations failed, it would continue the warning strikes and protests on St. Mary’s Day and the second Christmas shopping Saturday.
“It always takes two to reach a compromise. We took a step towards the union several times, but there was hardly any movement on the other side,” said Trefelik, according to a release from the Austrian Chamber of Commerce. The trade association added that retail is more affected by bankruptcies than other sectors. “Only the large online retailers from third countries benefit. But they hardly pay any taxes in this country, do not train apprentices and do not finance our social funds. In reality, this is a shot in the foot for the union and the Chamber of Labor,” says trade association managing director Rainer Will.
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The union confirmed that the employers had moved away from the one-off payment instead of a corresponding increase. However, the union has also moved very well, said Helga Fichtinger, deputy head of the advocacy department – industry and collective agreement policy in the GPA. The union’s proposals to increase lower salaries more or to compensate for the KV increase over time were not accepted.
The Handels-KV is about the salaries of 430,000 employees and apprentices. It is the second largest collective agreement in Austria. In four rounds, the social partners have so far failed to reach a salary agreement for 2024. The union is insisting on an increase of at least the level of annual inflation. That would be 9.2 percent. The employers recently offered 6 percent and a one-off bonus of 1,000 euros.
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