On 29 September, Wilhelm Haberzettl, chairman of the works council of the federal railways company (ÖBB), said he considered recent statements of ÖBB boss Christian Kern as a “declaration of war”. According to Kern, contracts stating that employees must not be sacked under any circumstances should be abolished. Kern explained his plan was to reduce ÖBB’s workforce by 4,000 to 40,000 by 2015. He also spoke about the opportunity to outsource certain departments of ÖBB, with privatisations as another possibility – an option that the ÖBB leader had ruled out until then. Haberzettl warned ÖBB staff may down tools if the company’s executive board would introduce a change of work contract agreements.
English: http://austrianindependent.com/news/Business/2011-09-30 ...
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 at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2011.