KV trade: Negotiations broken off again by employers

2023-12-16 00:49:05

No new offer after 9 hours – serious damage to social partnership

Vienna (OTS) – The collective bargaining negotiations for the approximately 430,000 employees and apprentices in retail were again broken off by the employers in the 6th round. After almost 10 hours of negotiations, the employers were unwilling to submit a new offer.

“This approach by the employers amounts to a mockery of the employees who still do not know whether they will receive a guaranteed salary increase at the turn of the year and represents great damage to the social partnership .38% and 8.58% and also offered an opening clause for companies in economic difficulties, the employers remained blocking. They obviously don’t want retail employees to be compensated for inflation. The suspicion arises that the employers only proposed today’s negotiations pro forma in order to prevent further strike action on Friday and shopping Saturday,” says the chief negotiator of the GPA union, Helga Fichtinger.

The now announced one-sided recommendation of 8% to companies only creates uncertainty and will damage the retail industry in the long term – the largest industry is shooting itself into an out – from which it will be difficult to get out. The social partnership was hereby defacto terminated today. It is clear that it has no legally binding effect and that this is to be seen as a “company increase” and cannot be counted towards the upcoming KV increase.

“In the coming week, we will once again inform as many employees as possible about the provocative behavior of employers and also carry out further strikes and public actions,” says the chairman of the trade sector in the GPA, Martin Müllauer.