Benya formula
The Benya formula is an agreement named after the former Austrian trade unionist Anton Benya , according to which annual wage increases should be based on inflation and production increases.
According to the Benya formula, wage increases should include compensation for inflation plus the value of medium-term productivity gains. The latter usually includes overall economic labor productivity (gross domestic product per employee). According to economic expert Alois Guger from the Austrian Institute for Economic Research (WIFO), the formula is “rather long-term”. According to this, it is not about inflation and the productivity progress of a year, but about a longer period.
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) called in 2000 to its member associations to orient themselves in wage negotiations at the Benya formula.
target
The agreement is intended to preserve the purchasing power of employees and the increase in wages should not fall too far behind that of corporate profits. This is intended to stimulate domestic demand, which in turn also benefits companies, which can then sell more products domestically. Exclusively export-oriented companies do not benefit. On the contrary, their competitiveness is weakened by sharp wage increases. However, in good economic times, the Benya formula should lead to more moderate wage increases than in countries without a strong social partnership , which benefits all companies.
development
In the 1960s, the President of the Austrian Federation of Trade Unions (ÖGB), Anton Benya, set a new guideline for annual wage increases. According to the new formula, employees will be compensated for annual inflation and given a share in the medium-term increase in productivity. Benya wanted to increase the prosperity of broad sections of the population and at the same time give the economy room to breathe.
With reference to the pressures of globalization , the “formula for success” was suspended in Austria from the mid-1990s. The wage share of the national income fell in Austria from 1995 to 2011 from 76 to 68 percent. In contrast, the dividend distribution of the stock corporations had doubled to ten percent of the company's value added in the same period. In addition to Austria, Germany and the Netherlands have kept their wage increases below the productivity growth for years and thus increased their competitiveness at the expense of falling real wages .
A journalist for the industrial magazine attributes the slight increase in real wages to the “radical transformation process” in the economy. The daily newspaper Die Presse refers to the growing part-time quota. According to WIFO, "a continuously full-time industrial worker who has never been on short-time work or has been unemployed in the past few years should have received compensation to a large extent for the progress in productivity".
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Benya formula equals productivity-oriented wage policy - blog.arbeit-wirtschaft.at. In: blog.arbeit-wirtschaft.at. Retrieved April 25, 2016 .
- ↑ a b Michael Mesch: Benya formula equals productivity-oriented wage policy (= economy and society . Volume 41 , no. 4 ). LexisNexis, 2015, ISSN 0378-5130 , p. 593-599 ( wug.akwien.at [PDF]).
- ↑ cf. about http://www.wienerzeitung.at/nachrichten/oesterreich/politik/492422_100-Jahre-Benya-OeGB-und-Parlament-wuerdigen-Langzeitpraesidents.html
- ↑ a b c d e Metalworkers' wages: Scope despite the crisis? DiePresse.com , September 18, 2009
- ↑ a b Just wages do not fall from heaven. ( Memento from October 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Wirtschaftsblatt , September 2, 2011
- ^ Rainer Bartel: On the conception of the welfare state - foundations, development and problems of comprehensive social policy . Lecture notes at the JKU Linz. 1996 ( jku.at [PDF]). On the conception of the welfare state - basics, development and problems of comprehensive social policy ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ "Benya formula": The tatters are flying between the social partners . Profil.at , October 30, 2013
- ↑ a b The rediscovery of a formula for success ( memento of October 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), Kurier (daily newspaper)
- ↑ Andreas Kreutzer: Retirees have to make their contribution . Industry magazine , May 7, 2010
