Image: ROBERT JAEGER (APA/ROBERT JAEGER)
Today, Thursday afternoon, the fourth round of negotiations for the collective agreement (KV) 2024 of the metal technology industry starts. If no agreement is reached today, there will be a strike from November 6th – i.e. from next Monday, according to a press release from the PRO-GE union. The trade union federation (ÖGB) has already given permission to strike.
So far, however, ideas still differ widely. In the third round of discussions, the social partners had nothing more to say to each other after just a few hours. What followed were company meetings in the metal industry. As announced, these could turn into warning strikes if there is no agreement.
- More on the subject: “The 2.5 percent offer is a mess”
“It’s a negotiation, both have to move”
The employer’s negotiator, Christian Knill, again referred to the deteriorated economic conditions on Thursday in the Ö1 “Journal at eight”, which left little scope for increases. He left it open whether the employers would present a new offer today. “It’s a negotiation, both have to move,” said Knill, chairman of the Metal Technology Industry Association (FMTI). “If we see that we’re just being pushed along and it’s like ‘increase it, increase it, increase it, but we stay at our 11.6 percent’, then it’s going to be difficult.”
The union’s youth organization (PRO-GE Youth) is organizing a media campaign in front of the Chamber of Commerce in Vienna this morning in advance of the fourth round of negotiations. The PRO-GE Youth is calling for a “respectful” wage settlement for young employees in the metal industry and a better classification of apprenticeship graduates, it said in a press release.
In the metal industry there is a demand for 11.6 percent more wages and salaries, employers are offering 2.5 percent and a one-off payment of 1,050 euros. However, the unions don’t think much of one-off payments, as PRO-GE chief negotiator Reinhold Binder made clear to employees at a works meeting last week. “The one-off payments can go to shit,” said Binder. The tone had recently become significantly worse; before the third round of negotiations, employers complained that they were receiving anonymous threats.
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