A. The concept and meaning
As mentioned above (page 12), the employment relationship is characterised by an imbalance of bargaining power when negotiating working conditions. In order to compensate for this, special sources of labour law have evolved. Employees have joined together in trade unions to negotiate working conditions in the form of collective agreements at the collective level. At this level, pressure can be exerted on the employers through the threat of joint action, especially the organised, collective stoppage of work (strike). Thus, working conditions can be better negotiated at the collective rather than the individual level. The (basic) right to strike is therefore a necessary prerequisite for balanced negotiations of collective agreements, otherwise collective bargaining would be ‘collective begging’, as the German Federal Labour Court has very appropriately commented. The negotiating partners of a collective agreement are two parties of approximately equal strength. In practice, the trade unions (employees' side) and the sub-organisations of the Economic Chambers (employers' side) are the parties to most collective agreements in Austria. The result is a supra-establishment industrywide reconciliation of interests by setting minimum standards in establishments of the respective sector.
