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Public firms' windfall for bosses exposed

Dozens of managers working for companies close to the state earn more than the chancellor, it has been disclosed.

The Federal Audit Office (RH) investigated the salaries of top-tier decision-makers at firms the Republic of Austria owned a stake of 50 per cent or more in to find that 64 of them received more than the 286,000 Euros which Social Democratic (SPÖ) Chancellor Werner Faymann was paid last year.

Members of the executive board of energy sector giant Verbund AG topped the ranking with a per capita income of 842,000 Euros, followed by Post AG managers at 670,000 Euros. Statistics show that decision-makers at the public businesses received 19.6 per cent more in 2010 than in 2007 while employees’ average wages edged up by only 10.4 per cent.

Post AG chiefs’ earnings soared by 28.7 per cent between 2007 and 2010. The company’s staff got only 8.7 per cent more last year than in 2007 – a development which barely compensated for inflation. The Labour Chamber (AK) said the general salary developments for high-ranking businesspeople at firms owned by the state were "generally remarkable and not justified in crisis times."

The latest RH check also reveals that 15 per cent of executive board members were women in 2010, up by 11.2 per cent in 2007. Their incomes – found to be 110,500 Euros before tax a year – were significantly lower last year than sums their male counterparts were paid (175,000 Euros).

Federal Railways (ÖBB) chief Christian Kern received less than half a million Euros including bonuses in 2010, according to the RH investigation. The organisation found that ÖBB board members’ average income was 297,000 Euros that year. The wages of chiefs of ÖBB’s cargo affiliate, Rail Cargo Austria (RCA), were higher in 2010 at 454,000 Euros. ÖBB officials pointed out that this was not the case anymore due to recent firm-internal restructuring procedures.

Top-tier managers working for state-owned and private enterprises may soon have to pay higher taxes if the SPÖ has the final say in its current savings package debate with the People’s Party (ÖVP). The coalition’s leaders spent only a brief Christmas holiday to return to the negotiating table at the chancellor’s office in Vienna.

The SPÖ wants to increase the income tax for everyone who receives 300,000 Euros or more before tax. SPÖ Burgenland Governor Hans Niessl reiterated this idea only yesterday (Weds) – despite Faymann’s appeal to fellow SPÖ members to abstain from expressing or commenting on the various tax reform proposals in the coming weeks. The chancellor called for silence until his team of ministers finished the ongoing discussions with the ÖVP delegation headed by Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger and ÖVP Finance Minister Maria Fekter.

The ÖVP officially opposes all kinds of tax increases. The decision of the party’s federal board to focus on making cuts and reduce various spending of the state in the coming years came shortly after ÖVP Interior Minister and Federal Workers’ and Employees’ Association (ÖAAB) chief Johanna Mikl-Leitner called on Austria’s rich to "hand over the cash". Mikl-Leitner suggested the introduction of a mandatory fee on incomes of half a million and above.

Erwin Pröll, the influential governor of Lower Austria, also spoke out in favour of a temporary measure affecting those who earned a lot. Pröll said such a fee should be effective for a few years’ time, depending on how the economy developed. The governor called on the Social Democrats to give up its plans to raise taxes on assets. The SPÖ expects additional revenues of two to four billion Euros a year if some taxes were upped from 2012.

Austrian Times

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Write your comment to this article here

Glen Sweeney wrote on 30. 12. 2011 from Vienna about "Public firms' windfall fo..."

'FAT CATS!' The same the world over, why are we always so surprised when we discover this imbalance between normal and fat cat incomes and bonuses? Not forgetting the expense accounts and perks of course. The strange thing is, they think it is their right to cream off the top.

Reply

Tag cloud:
ouml Ouml taxes employees chancellor ranking Leitner Faymann Euros wages Austria rsquo executive ministers makers Social income Mikl Governor ndash

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