NATIONAL LABOUR MARKET POLICIES
Basic Information Reports
2.3.1.3.1.Law pertaining to collective legislation
The Workplace Labour Relations Act (Arbeitsverfassungsgesetz - ArbVG) defines the regulatory instruments for collective legislation and regulates collective agreements, statutes, the minimum wage rate and internal agreements.
Collective agreements are agreements in writing which are concluded between the representative bodies of employers and employees with collective bargaining authority and which regulate working conditions (e.g. rights and duties of employers and employees ensuing from employment contracts, special payments, working hours, periods of notice, changes in the collective legal entitlements of former employees, social plans, the form and extent of codetermination in such matters, and joint bodies established by the parties to collective agreements).
The most important items covered by collective agreements are wages and salaries.
The parties to collective agreements operate autonomously in defining the content of the agreement within its legal framework.
The legal representative bodies for employers and employees and public-law legal entities are authorised by act of law to be party to a collective agreement.
Voluntary professional associations of employers and employees may be invested with collective bargaining authority by official notification from the Federal Arbitration Office.
When a professional association with collective bargaining authority concludes a collective agreement, the designated legal representative body for the members affected forfeits its collective bargaining authority for the duration of the contract.
Hence, voluntary professional associations have seniority over the chambers competing with them in the collective regulation of working conditions.
In practice, in the Austrian system of collective bargaining the trade unions as the executive bodies of the ÖGB or the ÖGB itself are usually the representative bargaining parties for the employees; the employers are generally represented by the competent chambers or their agents. Voluntary professional associations only function as bargaining parties for the employers when they represent multilevel organisations (e.g. savings banks, insurance companies, newspaper publishers).
The stipulations laid down in collective agreements have a direct influence on the content of employment contracts, including those of employees who are not members of the employees' association concerned but are employed by a party to the collective agreement (legal validity for non-affiliates).
The content of collective agreements may not be circumscribed by either internal or individual agreements. The only agreements with effect are those which are more favourable to employees (principle of preferential treatment), provided that the collective agreement does not - as is permissible - preclude exceptional arrangements (principle of regulation).
The Federal Arbitration Office may use statutes to extend the normative regulations contained in a collective agreement to employment not covered by collective agreement (cf. declarations of general application in Germany).
On the request of corporative employees' bodies with collective bargaining authority, the Federal Arbitration Office can fix minimum wage rates for sectors where there are no bargaining parties on the employer side and thus no collective agreement can be reached (e.g. for housekeepers, domestic help, kindergarten teachers).
Internal agreements are agreements in writing which are concluded between the proprietor of an enterprise and the works council as the staff representative (works committee, central works council, company group works council) in order to regulate matters which - by law or under the terms of a collective agreement - may only be governed by internal agreements.
The conditions laid down in internal agreements are directly binding within their jurisdiction - inasmuch as they do not regulate the privity of contract between the parties - and may neither be suspended nor restricted by individual agreements. Individual agreements are only valid in the event that they favour the employee or concern matters which are not regulated by internal agreement.
The ArbVG distinguishes between four types of internal agreement:
1. Essential internal agreements
Certain measures require the consent of the works council before they take legal effect (e.g. the introduction of internal disciplinary regulations, staff questionnaires and control mechanisms which may impinge on human dignity).
2. Substitutable internal agreements
These are measures for which the approval of the arbitration board suffices in lieu of the works council (introduction of automated staff information systems, introduction of staff assessment systems).
3. Compulsory internal agreements
If no agreement can be reached on the conclusion, modification or suspension of an internal agreement, the arbitration board is the ruling instance (e.g. regulation of working hours, social plans, general regulations, utilisation of company buildings and company equipment).
4. Optional internal agreements
These agreements require consensus between the employer and the works council and may not be forcibly concluded (e.g. guidelines for the allocation of company apartments, measures to prevent accidents or towards humane job design, general policy concerning disposal of leave).
While the right of the European Works Council to information and consultation (cf. 3.3) - which pertains to the economic, social, health-related and cultural interests of the employees - has no constitutive effect, it can however influence collective labour law.
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