General strike over pensions

(6 May 2003)
1. Wide shot of demonstrators
2. Pan across demonstration
3. Closer shot demonstrators
4. Police officers in demonstration laughing
5. SOUNDBITE (German) Hans Sallmutter, President of GPA, Austria's largest workers' union (representing white collar workers):
"Everybody in this republic does not like this law, but the government is putting it over us. They want to force it on us, so I say we are against it."
5. Wide shot protesters applauding
6. Various close ups of people applauding
7. SOUNDBITE (German) Hans Sallmutter, President of GPA, Austria's largest workers' union (representing white collar workers):
"Firstly, we are on strike because the government made a pension-destroying bill, that they presented last Tuesday. It's confronting people like an attack, like a robbery. The age for pensions is going up. And the second reason is that they are planning to make things worse in a lot of ways, and that means that pensioners in the future, from 2010, 2012, 2015, 2020 up until 2028 will face a pension reduction of 38 percent on average. This means that people who do not earn so much face poverty when they get old."
8. Closed underground station
9. Bicycles on tram tracks
10. Two police officers on phone
11. Tram station
12. Close up tram
13. Pan from bus stop to traffic jam
14. Various of traffic jam
15. SOUNDBITE (German) Vox pop:
"I've been here for 45 minutes. The pension law must be revoked, you can't do it like this and you can't just ignore other people's opinions."
16. SOUNDBITE (German) Vox pop, taxi driver:
"The politicians only target people of lower income groups, and not those of higher income groups. I hope it leads to something."
17. Tram stop, cyclist doing thumbs up

STORYLINE:

In Austria's largest labour protest in decades freight trains, buses and streetcars stood still on Tuesday, as workers in the state sector heeded a union call to strike against planned cuts in old-age pensions.

Employees in dozens of private firms across Austria joined in the work stoppage, called by Austrian Federation of Labor Unions to oppose pension reforms that in some cases will cut benefits by more than 30 percent.

Auto clubs and other monitors nationwide reported relatively little fallout from the transit strikes, which in most cases were restricted to a few hours.

Traffic jams appeared no worse than usual, although more people were seen riding bicycles in major cities.

Despite the lack of congestion on the streets, the strikes had immense significance, signalling an end to the more than 50-year policy of consensus between government and labour.

That interplay - and reluctance of past governments to provoke the unions - has given postwar generations of workers generous social benefits, including state pensions that often exceed 80 percent of their final paychecks.

In pushing for the reforms, the present centrist-dominated government coalition says the state can no longer afford to bankroll pension schemes as generously as it has in the past.

Key changes would include penalising so called "early retirees" who in some cases had quit work in their early 50s by sharply reducing their benefits and in most cases linking full benefits to retirement ages of 65 for men and 60 for women.

Still to be voted on in parliament, the draft legislation also would base pensions on the average earned over a person's time worked instead of the present system which based benefits on the last 15 years of earnings - a
process that often led to relatively high retirement payouts.

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