Contribution of Party of Labour of Austria

The paralysis of the Austrian working class and the influence of the labour aristocracy

The social and political rights of the working class in Austria are constantly being attacked and dismantled. It makes no difference which bourgeois party is involved in or leads the government. The resistance of the working class is very limited. There are historical reasons for this and it also has to do with the weakness of the communist movement in Austria.

In 1945, at the end of the second imperialist world war, the Austrian Trade Union Federation (ÖGB) and its sub-unions were founded as a unified trade union by representatives of the Communist Party of Austria, the Social Democrats and the Christian Socials under the impact of the fascist dictatorship and resistance against fascism. One of the first measures to split the ÖGB was the implementation of a political faction system by the Social Democrats and Christian Socials. The Communists rejected this and refused to establish their own political faction in the ÖGB. Instead, they initiated the founding of the Trade Union Unity faction in the ÖGB. The influence of the communists in the ÖGB remained limited and was quickly pushed back and restricted by the social democratic and social Christian trade union leaders.

When spontaneous strikes and work stoppages took place in October 1950 in protest against the fourth wage-price pact, Trade Union Unity was the only faction to support the strikes. The social democratic party leadership and the labour aristocrats in the ÖGB instead deployed armed thugs to beat down the strikes. At the same time, the strike wave, which was the last major uprising of the Austrian working class against the system of so-called social partnership, was slandered by the bourgeois parties and in the bourgeois press as an attempted communist coup. When the strike finally collapsed, numerous communists were expelled from the Austrian Trade Union Federation, including resistance fighters and founding members of the ÖGB.

In the following decades, the Communists were finally forced into a minority position in the Austrian Trade Union Federation. In important industrial companies, however, the communists were able to defend their positions and occasionally succeeded in breaking through the isolation resulting from the factional system through strikes and struggles. However, the system of social partnership could not be broken.

The counter-revolution in the socialist states in Europe and the defeat of the labour and communist movement also contributed to the fact that the communists are hardly represented in the Austrian Trade Union Federation today and their influence is marginal. The labour aristocracy, for its part, has used the situation to further de-democratise the ÖGB and consolidate its control over the ÖGB. Any form of workplace cell or organisation has been dissolved by the labour aristocracy. Members of the union have no means of influencing the ÖGB. The ÖGB itself relies only on the elected members of the works councils in the companies. The delegates to ÖGB congresses are hand-picked by the elected members of the largest works councils, so that the situation at trade union congresses is that the labour aristocracy elects itself to functions and approves its own policies.

The state of the social and political rights of the working class in Austria and the role played by the ÖGB can be seen most clearly in the example of the introduction of the 12-hour working day a few years ago. In the election campaign before the abolition of the 10-hour working day, all bourgeois parties, including the Social Democratic Party, called for the introduction of the 12-hour working day, while the labour aristocracy in the ÖGB and the Chamber of Labour remained silent. After the election, a government was formed by the conservative People's Party and the Freedom Party, which finally introduced the 12-hour day.

The social democratic leadership of the ÖGB polemicised for weeks against the frontal attack on the working class.

In reality, however, they merely organised a large symbolic demonstration in Vienna, to which delegations from companies throughout Austria were mobilised and in which around 100,000 employees and workers took part. No labour disputes, political strikes or general strikes were organised, so that the government was able to pass the law in parliament without any serious resistance in the companies. Only in some large companies were the possibilities of applying the 12-hour working day restricted by agreement between management and the labour aristocracy at company level.

Dear comrades,

In Austria the situation is such that the working class and its trade union are in the complete grip of the labour aristocracy. Any tradition of workplace cells or organisations has been permanently destroyed. The working class is largely paralysed in the face of attacks on its social and political rights. Younger employees and workers in particular have little or no experience of labour disputes and strikes. In the period from 2012 to 2021, there was an average of one strike day per 1000 employees per year.

This started to change last autumn. The persistent inflation has also demanded a lot from the working class in Austria. Austria's employees and pensioners lost around 10.4 billion euros in 2022 and 2023 due to inflation. While the labour aristocracy largely managed to keep the situation under control during the annual wage negotiations in autumn 2022 through works meetings and demonstrations, there was a veritable wave of strikes by Austrian standards in autumn 2023. Despite numerous warning strikes, however, every effort was made to ensure that there were no strikes in several sectors at the same time and that the potential for conflict multiplied.

The Party of Labour of Austria participates in all employee activities called for by the ÖGB and supports the few labour disputes and trade union demonstrations taking place with solidarity. Especially in the sectors in which we have members, we intervene directly and stand up for a class-oriented policy, for the unity of the working class beyond the division into political factions. We criticise the social partnership policy of the labour aristocracy in the works councils and in the trade union leadership.

The aim is to strengthen our roots in the workplaces with the aim of forming workplace cells and organisations. In the long term, we must succeed in forming class-oriented trade union structures in the companies and in the ÖGB in order to break through the paralysis of the working class and reorganise the labour and trade union movement.