Observation (CEACR) - adopted 1994, published 81st ILC session (1994)

Minimum Wage-Fixing Machinery Convention, 1928 (No. 26) - Austria (Ratification: 1974)

Referring to the comments made by the Federal Chamber of Labour concerning the effects of employers' withdrawing negotiating mandates for collective agreements on the fixing of minimum wage rates, the Government describes in its report the methods of wage fixation for four different groups of workers. The Government states that the regulation of terms of employment and remuneration by collective agreement is not the subject of the Convention.

The Committee takes due note of these indications. It, however, recalls again the obligation for the ratifying State, under Article 1 of the Convention, to create or maintain minimum wage-fixing machinery for workers employed in certain of the trades or part of trades in which two conditions are fulfilled, namely: (i) the absence of arrangements for the effective regulation of wages by collective agreement or otherwise; and (ii) the existence of exceptionally low wages. Therefore, if the withdrawal of negotiating mandates of employers may result in the absence of wage regulation by collective agreement, it should be examined whether the wages are exceptionally low in the trade concerned in order to determine the necessity of the minimum wage-fixing machinery for that trade. The Committee would be grateful if the Government would indicate the consequences of the withdrawal of negotiating mandates of employers in this respect.

[The Government is asked to report in detail for the period ending 30 June 1994.]