Austria - Union welcomes tougher laws on employment rights - July 21, 2010

The VIDA services union has backed a government initiative to better enforce minimum pay rates in collective agreements and other employment rights. The proposal is in preparation for the full opening up of the Austrian labour market to the rest of the European Union in 2011 and concern about social dumping. VIDA president Rudolf Kaske said that migrant workers in some border areas are already being paid 40% below the rate in the relevant collective agreement. Clearly, tougher measures are needed to ensure that employers pay the negotiated rates, Kaske argued.

English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/373;  

German: http://www.vida.at/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=S03/Page …

This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI atwww.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2009.