This week, the Austrian Economic Chamber and its president, Harald Mahrer, have come under heavy pressure because of their own pay scales.
The Chamber is increasing the salaries of its top officials by up to 60%, while the general staff are to receive a 4.2% raise — delayed by six months. At the same time, the very same Chamber is urging companies to keep wage increases below the inflation rate to help curb price growth. It warmly applauded the “sensible and crisis-adjusted” collective bargaining agreement in the metal industry, which resulted in a mere 1.41% wage increase.
Harald Mahrer responded to the outpouring of public and media outrage by demonstratively showing “remorse” and resigning one of his highly paid posts — a supervisory board seat at the National Bank.
If one were to be cynical, one might say:
Of course the Chamber officials need as much inflation compensation as possible. How else are they supposed to afford their private schools and supplemental health insurance?
Should they really have to rely on the public system they so loyally and lucratively co-administer?
That would indeed be an inhumane indignity — especially at a time when reports of the decline of the public school system are mounting, and even basic emergency medical care seems, in part, no longer guaranteed.
In fact, these debates about remuneration often miss the deeper structural problem.
The legally enshrined role of the social partners in general — and of their chambers in particular — sustained by compulsory membership fees, brims with constitutional contradictions.
Without claiming to be exhaustive:
The accumulation of offices — holding positions both in interest groups and in the Republic’s institutions — prevents genuine independence and creates top-down power structures rather than bottom-up representation.
Why is the Chamber levy (Kammerumlage 1) calculated based on revenue instead of profit? Certain business models are favored, while others are disadvantaged.
To what extent can the impartiality of the Economic Chamber be ensured when its billion-euro reserves are invested in large corporations that benefit from the displacement of smaller competitors — especially through overregulation? Shouldn’t permissible reserves be capped and clear investment rules established?
A satirical scene from everyday life in the Chamber:
“Hey Franz, the EU wants to make life harder for our innkeepers with a new building directive. Many will probably throw in the towel again.”
“Ah, don’t worry, Fritz — part of our €2 billion reserves is invested in McDonald’s shares anyway. Speaking of which, the innkeeper from St. Unfried am Berg hasn’t paid his mandatory fees for six months. Should we enforce collection or just file for bankruptcy right away?”
The problem exists just as much for the Chamber of Labour (Arbeiterkammer).
What real economic interest does that institution have in preventing a multi-tier healthcare system if it’s allowed to hold shares in insurance companies that make princely profits from private supplemental policies?
Why is the Austrian Trade Union Federation (ÖGB) — which invested (or invests) its strike fund in hedge funds and represents only 20% of employees — still granted the right to negotiate collective agreements at all?
It’s quite possible the social partners will once again manage to keep these questions out of the public debate, despite the current wave of outrage.
Yet in the long term, the success and vitality of Austria’s economy — and therefore the future viability of Austrian society itself — will depend crucially on addressing them.
Unfortunately, Austria’s political leadership appears entirely oblivious to the seriousness of the situation.
In the very same week that the Chamber’s salary scandals were exposed, Chancellor Stocker appeared in a video message from his home office to declare the nation’s future a matter of “patriotic optimism” — without uttering a single word about the need for structural reform.
