AUSTRIA: Peak union plays dead

AUSTRIA: Peak union plays dead

Austrian peak union plays dead

GRAZ, Austria — At a recent government-organised summit, it was proclaimed that the European Union target of a zero budget deficit could be reached only through joint national initiatives by political institutions and trade unions.

While the social democratic opposition Socialist Party of Austria (SPOe) and the Greens did not attend the summit, they share the goal of a zero budget deficit and hence of austerity programs and cuts to welfare.

The Austrian trade union peak body OeGB took part in the summit and supports the right-wing coalition government's aim of a zero deficit. The OeGB leaders still publicly reject the government's changes to the pension system and industrial relations, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the main issue is not the government's anti-worker program but the speed with which the austerity measures are being implemented.

The OeGB's radical rhetoric against the government's austerity program has transformed itself neither into a practical fight in the form of strikes nor into offering workers a perspective on how to hold on to hard-won gains. It is now taken for granted by the public that the coalition government will be able to implement its decisions to cut spending without large-scale resistance.

The government will be holding prices and incomes negotiations in the coming European autumn, and the social-democratic-dominated OeGB leadership has already indicated that it wants to separate income negotiations from general social policy, which means holding the income negotiations while acquiescing in the general anti-worker direction of the government.

The passivity of the OeGB leaders was demonstrated again when the wholesale privatisation of the largest Austrian bank, Bank Austria (which also has shares in a plethora of other industries), took place without the slightest criticism. The leaders of the workers committee of Bank Austria wholeheartedly supported the sell-off.

Bank Austria is now a 100% subsidiary of the German-owned Hypo Bank, which is now the biggest financial institution in eastern Europe and has become an important instrument of German/Austrian imperialism. It is estimated that thousands of jobs in finance and related sectors (such as building) will be lost through the sell-off.

BY MARGARITA WINDISCH

From GLW issue 416