Wage-price agreement

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The five wage-price agreements (also price-wage agreements ) in Austria after 1945 were attempts to reduce subsidies by means of national collective agreements, to achieve realistic price ratios and at the same time to mitigate the inflation in prices and the associated wage conflicts on a consensual basis.

After 1945, the ranks of the major parties and interest groups tried to avoid the climate of confrontation that had characterized the Austrian First Republic and to resolve the social disputes in a civilized way through negotiations "at the round table". This also applied to the question of post-war inflation. In view of the enormous surplus of money , the consumer prices that were artificially kept low by the Nazi dictatorship and the resulting black market problems, three methods seemed applicable to normalization: shock-like price release, a massive administrative reduction in the money supply and a slow, gradual adjustment. Austria's economic policy after 1945 pursued a combination of these measures. A first currency cut was made in 1945, but it was not enough, in 1947 another had to be made. More and more goods were also excluded from management and left to free price formation. In this context, price-wage agreements were also used to curb inflation. The first of a total of five agreements was concluded in August 1947, the second in September 1948, the third in May 1949, the fourth in September 1950 and the fifth in July 1951.

The devaluation of money took on a significant level in the late 1940s, which also worried the population. Between April and June 1947, for example, food prices rose 83 percent, while earnings rose by only 20 percent. This led to the first wage-price agreement in 1947. It was concluded between the Chamber of Labor and ÖGB on the one hand, and the Federal Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture on the other, and approved by the Federal Government. It provided for a dampening of wage increases while at the same time guaranteeing the basic needs of an employee household. At the same time, the prices for agricultural products had to be raised to a realistic level. By 1951, four more such agreements were concluded between the social partners and sanctioned by the government. This involved reducing agricultural subsidies, increasing utility tariffs, abolishing coal price subsidies, but also raising wages at the same time.

The effectiveness of this economic policy instrument was hotly debated. In the course of the 4th wage-price agreement, the October strikes occurred in 1950 , and Butschek even considers the 5th agreement to promote inflation. In any case, the wage-price agreements are considered an essential stage in the development of the Austrian social partnership .

Not least because of the rather mixed experience with wage-price agreements, the more informal Joint Commission for Price and Wage Issues was founded in 1957 .

literature

  • Hans Seidel : Austria's economy and economic policy after the Second World War , Vienna, Manz 2005.
  • Felix Butschek : The leap forward in: Robert Kriechbaumer (Hg): The mirror of memory. The view from inside Vienna etc., Böhlau 1998, p. 489 ff.
  • Monthly reports of the Austrian Institute for Economic Research, No. 5/1949, p. 171 ff.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Felix Butschek: The leap forward in: Robert Kriechbaumer (Hg): The mirror of memory. The view from inside Vienna etc., Böhlau 1998, p. 499.

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