Inflation in housing, energy and food: AK takes stock

“It was an eventful year in 2023,” was AK President Andreas Stangl’s assessment at the press conference in Linz. The Upper Austrian Chamber of Labor was able to win a total of 105.8 million euros for its members last year – the majority of the amounts won are social law (62.1 million euros), followed by insolvency matters (more than 26 million euros) and labor law ( around 15 million euros).

Focus on inflation

“The biggest problem that bothered employees last year was still inflation, especially in housing, energy, mobility and food,” said the AK President.

In the first quarter of 2023, many electricity providers increased prices for existing customers, such as Energie AG, Wels Strom GmbH and Verbund AG. According to Stangl, the procedure and the scope raised legal questions, which the Chamber of Labor had resolved in court through a class action lawsuit. With success, because all three companies gave in and were ready to find solutions. This resulted in one-off payments of between 10 and 125 euros in the same year – depending on the provider, tariff and annual electricity consumption.

314,385 consultations in 2023

The main tasks of the AK Upper Austria are still the advice and representation of members in labor and social law, said Andrea Heimberger, director of the AK Upper Austria. A total of 314,385 consultations were recorded in 2023, three quarters of which took place by telephone.

14,700 legal acts were processed by AK lawyers in 2023, and 8,500 legal cases in labor and social law matters as well as in insolvency proceedings were concluded. “In most cases – exactly 81 percent – these were employees of companies in which no works council had been set up,” said Heimberger.

Upcoming AK elections in March

With her campaign “Give the voice a voice,” AK President Stangl once again referred to the Chamber of Labor elections that will take place in Austria from March 5th to 18th. Around 570,000 members are eligible to vote, “in the last election, voter turnout was just over 40 percent. We would like to keep that,” said Stangl.

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