Vienna airport boss Günther Ofner, in his role as WKO specialist group chairman, describes the online survey organized by the Vida union about the new collective agreement for the flying staff of Austrian Airlines, which is currently being negotiated, as a “fake survey”.

For several weeks now, Ofner, who is a full-time board member of Austria's largest airport, has, as a WKO official, repeatedly criticized the Vida union and the AUA Bord works council. In this context, it should be noted that, for legal reasons, Austrian Airlines is not allowed to negotiate and conclude the collective agreement itself, but must be represented by the Chamber of Commerce, whose aviation specialist group chairman is Günther Ofner. At the same time, AUA is the largest airline customer of Flughafen Wien AG, which Ofner manages together with Julian Jäger.

In the collective bargaining negotiations, the fronts have hardened because the employee representatives are demanding significantly higher wages than those offered by the employers. While Ofner has repeatedly described the latest offer as “very good”, the Vida union sees it completely differently. AUA boss Annette Mann recently even announced that if the employee representatives get their way, Austrian Airlines could even discontinue an unspecified number of routes for economic reasons or give them to sister companies within the Lufthansa Group, which in their view are more economical would have to give up. This statement was certainly taken as a threat by the works councils and trade unionists.

In the meantime, several works meetings and even strikes organized by employee representatives were held. No agreement has been found in 20 rounds of negotiations so far. In the first quarter of the current year 2024, Austrian Airlines posted deep red numbers. The company also attributes this to the flight cancellations due to strikes and company meetings. These have also led to a decline in booking numbers, as the carrier suspects that passengers are worried whether their booked flight might be canceled due to a strike. In addition, the Lufthansa Group's customer service has been criticized for a long time.

Ofner criticizes the Vida member survey

The Vida union wanted to know from its members how they felt about the current negotiations and whether any further industrial action should be organized. Since this is a member survey, flying AUA employees who do not belong to Vida were not entitled to vote. This is exactly what really annoys WKO specialist group chairman Günther Ofner, because in his opinion only a small minority of pilots and flight attendants are even organized in the Vida union.

“The fake survey conducted by Vida until yesterday was neither transparent nor representative. Only around a quarter of the AUA employees were even allowed to take part, and even the GPA union members were not allowed to vote,” criticizes WKÖ aviation boss Günther Ofner. “Such a manipulative survey does not legitimize any further actions against the AUA, its employees and the aviation location.”

Vida and GPA are sections of the ÖGB

Even if, for example, the Vida and the GPA appear to the outside world as if they were different trade unions, it should be pointed out that from a legal point of view they are only an unincorporated section of the Austrian Trade Union Confederation, which has the legal form of an association. However, within the ÖGB there are enormous differences between the members of the individual sub-areas. The fact that the ÖGB is de facto the only Austrian trade union is due to developments in the first years of the Second Republic.

According to Ofner, thousands of jobs at AUA and other companies at the location were being “wantonly and jeopardized with completely excessive, unfulfillable demands.” In addition, the union actions also harm the numerous Vida members in other companies, especially at the airport. Several million euros in damage have already been caused, but customer trust has also been severely strained and tourism has been damaged. In addition, the AUA’s negative and second-worst result in the first quarter of this year shows “that money doesn’t grow on trees.” Ofner therefore has little understanding for “the fact that a few high earners among the pilots, some of whom have an annual salary of more than 200.000 euros, are now demanding a salary increase of 50.000 euros or more. This increase alone is more than flight attendants earn in a year. Anyone who cares about the future of the AUA and the jobs in Austria as an aviation location must therefore call for an end to Vida's unjustified actions.