Rail workers open wage talks as union seeks inflation compensation

Railway workers will open Austria’s autumn wage negotiations on Monday, with their union seeking compensation for 3.2% inflation, ORF reports.

Reinhard Stemmer, head of the union in Vorarlberg, said the goal was to preserve workers’ purchasing power. “We have to give people back enough so they can still afford certain things,” he said. The union is particularly seeking inflation compensation in the retail sector.

Karlheinz Kopf, president of Vorarlberg’s Chamber of Commerce, argued that such pay rises would drive up prices and weaken businesses. He said inflation was not the right measure for setting wage increases and called for pay developments to be more closely linked to gross value added in each industry.

Metalworkers traditionally begin the negotiations, but they will not do so this year because employers and unions agreed to a two-year crisis deal for the metal industry last year. The deal provides for a 1.9% wage increase, a level that could serve as a benchmark for other sectors.

The railway workers’ collective agreement covers 55,000 employees nationwide, including 1,500 in Vorarlberg.