National Reports

AUSTRIA

December 2000
GPA
Collective agreement for employees in the sector services of automatic data processing and information technology

The GPA has negotiated a collective agreement for employees in the sector information technologies (IT). This collective agreement - valid for 20,000 employees, starting on 1st January 2001 - is a milestone for better working conditions in the new economy. This collective agreement includes also regulations for teleworking, which is very important, because the IT-sector is one of the sectors with the most teleworkers. Examples for the regulations are: Teleworking must be voluntary, the working material must be provided by the employer, also the expenses for the home office.
The collective agreement gives also the possibility of flexible working time, but guarantees basic protection norms. The change of the salary scheme brings advantages for younger employees and remunerates experience.
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31 October 2000
Peter Jonas
Standardisation of call center services

In the Austrian standardisation institute a project for standardization of the service call center started. This initiative came from representatives of the call center trade. The members of the standardization committee – representatives of the trade and the workers - lay down the demands for the service call center but also how the service has to be provided. They define which kinds of services call centers do, what a call center has to offer to the customers, in which way the telephone contacts are done (truth, protection of private sphere). They define which data for outbound and for inbound is to provided, which technical equipment a call center must have. Furthermore demands on rooms, working material, ergonomy, breaks for the agents and work organization are layed down. Standards for qualification of the employees and the question of technical control of the agents are important points which must be discussed. The call center has also to provide surveys about work satisfaction of the employees.
[view the file]

6 October 2000
Unternehmensberatung Markant
New study about telework in Vienna

200 enterprises in Vienna were interviewed for a new study about teleworking. One fifth of the enterprises already has teleworkers. 34 % of the home offices were introduced last year. Most teleworkers are in the sectors organisation/information technology (24 %), marketing (10 %), sales (10 %) and administration (8 %). 35 % of the big enterprises have telework, but just 13 % of the small and middle-sized ones offer telework. Advertising agencies and banks offer the most telejobs. 55 % of teleworkers do alternating telework: that means they work some days in the week at home and some days in the office. The personnel managers state that the most important reason for introducing telework is the higher motivation and job satisfaction of qualified employees. The teleworkers decided on teleworking because of the flexible working time and the better compatibility of work and childcare.

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6 October 2000
Land Oberösterreich
Guidelines, check list and model employment contract for telework in the land Oberösterreich

The land Oberösterreich started in 1997 with a big pilot project to invent telework. Since June 1999 telework is part of the regular work life, in that every employee or official can apply to telework. When the job can be done in the form of telework and the superior agrees, the employee or the official can start teleworking.
Now there are already more than 70 persons doing teleworking, half of them are women. Most teleworkers work one day in the week at home. Some teleworkers, who have social reasons (child care, disabled persons in the family) work more than one day in the week at home.
Together with the staff association the land OÖ has made model employment contracts, a guideline for telework and a check list to evaluate if jobs can be done in the form of telework. Telework is voluntary and the teleworkers can return to the workplace in the office. A written employment contract between employee or official and employer is necessary.
Only experienced workers who have already worked for some years in the office should do telework. The data line for the home office is installed by the firm. Most teleworkers get a laptop for teleworking. Every teleworker should keep a working diary to register the working time and the activities.

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October 2000
Eva Angerler, in 'Kompetenz', magazine of the GPA
Telearbeit und Call Center

Telework and call centers are new forms of work organisation which developed because of the use of new information and communication technologies. Many employees are interested in these new forms of work, but there are many risks for them. The benefits for the employees will only come apparent, when these new forms of work will be designed and regulated together with the social partners. This article tells about chances and risks of telework and call center and about the initiatives of the ETUC, eg. the project euro-telework and the negotiation for regulation of telework in the European Union.
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June 2000
Gernot Steinbichler
Gewerkschaft der Privatangestellten
A survey of the electronic and electrical industries

This is the proposal and questionnaires for a survey of the electronic and electrical industries in Austria undertaken by GPA with the following results:
86 questionnaires where sent to the trade union shop stewards of the electronic and electricity industries. 15 questionnaires were returned, 11 have no teleworkers, four have formal teleworking, but there are only a few teleworkers (1 – 10). In one company there are plans to introduce teleworking.
In seven enterprises there is “graue Telearbeit” or “shadow telework”. These teleworkers are mostly IT-employees. Many of them have individual agreements with their superior. They work at home especially in the morning or in the evening or on the weekend. So teleworking for them is just a way to do unpaid overtime. This means that regulating telework is also a way to face the problem of unpaid overtime and stress.
In two companies there are collective agreements for teleworking on enterprise level, and in one the pattern for a working contract for teleworking, which is part of the framework collective agreement, is used.

[download the proposal]
[download first questionnaire]
[download second questionnaire]

4 April 2000
Eva Angerler, Gewerkschaft der Privatangestellten, Vienna
Report of meeting: Ausbildung für TelearbeiterInnen und Call Center-Beschäftigte: Bewertung und Zukunftsperspektiven

Employees, shop stewarts, trade-unionists, managers, representatives of educational institutions and representatives of public institutions took part oi this meeting. Most participants registered at this meeting because of the subject "call centers". Therefore we decided to make no special workshop about teleworking, but two workshops about call centers.

First Eva Angerler, GPA, and Wolf Werdigier, Büro für Urbanistik, told the participants about the ETUC`s Euro-Telework project. Then Johann Günther, Head of the Department of Telecommunications, Information and Media, Donau-Universität Krems, gave a lecture on "Szenario 2010: Telematik und ihre Auswirkung auf Berufsbilder". He spoke about the affects of liberalisation and privatisation on the enterprises and the acceleration of the product developement. This results in changes of form, content and social organisation of work and an enormous demand for training. In the following debate there was asked the question, if this acceleration must be a destiny.

The next speaker was Mag. Helene Schiffbänker, Institut für Arbeitsmarktbetreuung und Arbeitsmarktforschung, she reportet of a new study about the future demand for call center jobs in Vienna. As a result, there is expected 3000 to 5000 new call center jobs in Vienna in the next two years. A result of the questioning of the enterprises was, that there is not enough qualified personnel for call centers. On the other hand the study showed that the most employees in call centers don´t want to stay for a longer time in a call center, because they have no future outlouk. In the most call centers is high turnaround, which is connected with atypical working contracts, much stress, performance controls, little promotion prospects and law salaries. In the discussion was indicated, that the working conditions of intern and extern call centers are different.

After lunch the participants were divided in two workshops. Employees, shop stewarts and managers reported of their experiences with training in their enterprises. There were different lines of business (banks, telecommunication firms, mail-order business, extern call centers) present. The trainings are organised in moduls. In some enterprises the enrollment takes some weeks, in others a halve year. Training on the job is very important. Furthermore there are trainings for new products and refresher. The contents communication, telecommunication and knowledge about products are standard. Some firms put the main emphasis on training of behavior, motivation or specialized knowledge. Not mentioned was: training as a task of teams, learning of each other in team-meetings, training contents like ergonomy, law (data protection, collective agreements), coping with stress, supervision. In call centers it is usual to have mentors to train new employees. Different are the competencies of the mentors, which are in some cases very big (for example judgement, decision about continuing employment or not). The trainings are in all cases intern, at higher levels also extern.

The participants evaluated their trainings: Special training tools for individual needs of the employees were positivly valued, also the possibility to decide, how many trainings one will go through. Negativly valued was the big amount of information, not enough training for special subjects like reclamation, not enough time for training, not enough consideration of differencies of individual qualifications, listen in to the telephone calls without telling the employees, no identity of this profession. After the exchange of views in the workshops the training institutions and the public institutions reported about their training programmes and projects. Generally graduates of this trainings have good chances to get a job.

The discussion of the demands on the training of the future was not possible, because the time was over. The participants are interested to continue the dialog about quality standards for training in call centers. This meeting is the first step to a network for the social dialog about call centers.
[download the programme]

22 March 2000
Vienna Calling
Zweites Wiener Call Center Forum

Vienna Calling is a platform to support the foundation and extension of call centers in Vienna. It was set up from Wiener ArbeitnehmerInnenförderungsfond (WAFF) and Wiener Wirtschaftsförderungsfond (WWFF).

On 22 March the call center team of Vienna Calling held an event called "Zweites Wiener Call Center Forum". The topic of the event was a discussion about strategies to reduce the high turnover of personal in call centers. The participants were managers of call centers, representatives of training institutions and workers representatives.

Firstly, there were two presentations about studies of the situation in Vienna. Now there are 3500 Call Center jobs in Vienna, in the next two years there will be 3000-5000 new jobs. The most call centers have a high turnover. Many agents work with unsecure contracts of employment, they have little promotion prospects and low wages.

Finally, there was a presentation about "Retaining and Motivating Call Center Agents" in Great Britain and Ireland. 200,000 persons work there in call centers, the turnover is about 30 %. Monotony, stress and little promotion prospects are the main reasons for the agents to leave a call center. This high turnover is very expensive and will go on when there are no strategies against it. As a conclusion there must be more investment in training, recruiting, better organisation of work and payment for the agents.

November 1999
Gewerkschaft der Privatangestellten, Austria:
Telework collective agreement for industrial employees:
"Rahmen-Kollektivvertrag für Angestellte der Industrie" Stand: 1.

The telework collective agreement applies to 140.000 industrial employees. It is a general framework for regulations. In "§ 19a Telearbeit" is regulated, that employer and employee have to make a written contract about teleworking. There must be regulations about work place, working time, working material, expense allowance, regulation of liabilities, about the contact of the teleworker to the enterprise and about the ending of telework. Part of the collective agreement is also a pattern for a contract between employer and employee.

The same regulations are also part of the collective agreement for the 20,000 workers and employees of the electricity enterprises and the 3,500 employees of the telekom enterprises.

February 1999
Brigitte Juraszovich, Edith Kranvogel-Zellermayer
Österreichisches Bundesinstitut für Gesundheitswesen (ÖBIG), Bundesministerium für Arbeit, Gesundheit und Soziales (BMAGS)
Im Auftrag des BMAGS
Schutz der Arbeitnehmerinnen und Arbeitnehmer bei Teilzeitarbeit und Teleheimarbeit

This study analyses on the basis of literature the impacts of part time working and teleworking on the health of the persons employed. The study includes the legal and the organisational conditions and compares Austria with other european countries.

The most important results concerning teleworking are: there are more self-employed teleworkers than employee-teleworkers. 90% of Austrian teleworkers have no formal agreement about teleworking with their employer. The most important disadvantages of teleworkers are their few social contacts, together with high demands on autonomy and independence, which often leads into a voluntary extension of the working time on the weekends and into the nights.

As a conclusion the authors suggest among other things, that there should be an annual health check for teleworkers. Furthermore it is necessary to create a network to coordinate the consulting activities for teleworkers. There should be a liablility to regulate the working conditions for teleworking in a working contract.

1999
GPA negotiating guide:
Arbeit im Call Center – Vorschläge zur Gestaltung

In the public Call Center jobs are often described as fashionable, technical and flexible jobs of the future. The reality in the firms is in many cases not like that. The new call center technologies give the possibility to make exact controls of the employees. Furthermore standardisation of work in call centers is possible, like assembly-line work. This brochure shows these risks and suggests a work organisation in call centers which is human and productive. Not quick and cheap should be the motto in Call Centers, but qualification and motivation of the employees are the most important things for success. The contents of the brochure are: New technologies used in Call Centers, Call Center Management, production control, qualification, working hours, organisation of work, strategies of the unions and the works councils, and a pattern for a collective agreement on enterprise level (negotiated between works councils and employer).
[download]

1999
Salzburg Chamber of Labour: study of call centres
Renate Böhm, Birgit Buchinger, Doris Gödl, Ulrike Gschwandtner:
Telefonieren bis die Ohren glühen

The representatives of economy and politics in Salzburg promote Call Centers because of the effects on employement rates. Since 1996 startet 10 Call Centers in the city of Salzburg. Therefore and because of the experiences in Germany the Chamber of Labour in Salzburg made a study about the working conditions in Call Centers. The most important results of the study are: 78% of the employed people have just free employment contracts (freie Dienstverträge), this is a form of self employment. The fluctuation is enormous, the everage time of the employment contracts is 3,2 months. 70% of the employed people are women. The remuneration is very bad. The situation in external Call Centers is worse than in internal Call Centers.

1998
Johann Günther (ed.) Felix Edelmann, Gunnar Staubmann, Herbert Tanner
Donau-Universität Krems, Abteilung für Telekommunikation, Information und Medien
Telearbeit – Leitfaden für Klein- und Mittelbetriebe

This book shows the chances and risks of teleworking, analyses the legal conditions and presents technical solutions. Teleworking is a form of work, which in most cases takes place in big enterprises. But in Europe most firms are small and middle-sized. In these enterprises there is a high demand for information. They do not know enough about the economic possibilities of telecommunication, they are not sure about technical standards and are generally insecure about regulation of telework. The book includes simple checklists for employers and employees. It presents the experiences of big IT-enterprises like Hewlett Packard, IBM, Kapsch, Microsoft and Siemens, which are pioneers of the introduction of teleworking in Austria.

1995
Paul Kolm, Ingrid Reifinger
Gewerkschaft der Privatangestellten
in: Friedrich Blaha (Hrsg.), Der Mensch am Bildschirmarbeitsplatz. Ein Handbuch über Recht, Gesundheit und Ergonomie, Wien/New York 1995
Telearbeit zuhause, unterwegs und im Telearbeitszentrum
People at workstations. A handbook on rights, health and ergonomics

This article about teleworking deals with ergonomic aspects of teleworking specially of mobile teleworking. In Austria mobile teleworking is most widespread. Alternating telework is less widespread and tele-homeworking is least wodespread. But employees, employers and self-employed are more and more interested in teleworking.

Mobile teleworking gives much space for automonous organisation of work, but because of the new communication technologies employees are easy to reach. This creates new possibilities to control them from outside. Mobile places of work, where the car is the "driving place of work", are not regulated by law in Austria. But it is possible to control the used working material and the working process.
[download]

IBM
Collective agreement on enterprise level:
Betriebsvereinbarung über die Einführung von Desk-Sharing

This collective agreement on enterprise level regulates the introduction of desk sharing and the conditions of entry. The aim of this contract is to create a work organisation where also the employees can benefit. The shop steward established a committee which decides together with the employer, if there are the appropriate conditions for the introduction of desk-sharing. The employees who take part in desk-sharing have the right to establish a 'home-working place' or to get the working materials for mobile teleworking. Teleworking is regulated in the teleworking collective agreement of IBM Austria. There is no obligation for teleworking. Further, the desk-sharing collective agreement regulates the standards for equipment of the desk-sharing workplaces.
[download]

Werner Tallafuss, shop steward, IBM Austria:
Der geteilte Arbeitsplatz(Article about desk-sharing)

In this article the shop steward of IBM Austria reports about the introduction of desk-sharing in his enterprise. He explaines that desk-sharing does not always find the agreement of the concernd employees, because they must give up their own desk and their own territory. On their own place they feel secure and comfortable. The employees also complain that the reduced presence in the office reduces the common interest which is necessary for team-working.But on the other hand many desks in the office are often not used because many employees are visiting costumers or are working at home. Through the introduction of desk-sharing the employer can save a lot of money. But the introduction of desk-sharing means also a new definition of work organisation, cooperation and communication, which gives the employees more independence.