Chamber of Labor

Those who grow up poor have fewer opportunities in life

At the AK General Assembly on Tuesday in Feldkirch, the focus was on child poverty, among other things(Bild: Vondrak)

Over 18,000 children in Vorarlberg are at risk of poverty. The Vorarlberg Chamber of Labor is now calling for this extremely worrying development to be consistently counteracted.

If parents' financial resources are severely limited, this often has a negative impact on their children's development. This is why the parliamentary groups tabled various motions at the plenary meeting of the Chamber of Labor on Tuesday in order to reduce the risk of poverty and create more educational equality. For example, all childcare and education should be free of charge so that all children have the same opportunities - regardless of their parents' income.

Risk of poverty
The lack of childcare provision and the sometimes high fees are one of the main reasons why women in particular stay at home, can only work part-time and therefore receive less income and later less pension, which in turn perpetuates precarious conditions.

AK President Bernhard Heinzle also emphasized that fair educational opportunities should also be in society's interest with regard to the shortage of skilled workers: "We absolutely need massive investment in education." Only the FPÖ - to the astonishment of all other parliamentary groups - did not vote in favor of the motions to expand elementary education and to abolish child poverty.

Not least because of the shortage of skilled workers, we absolutely need massive investment in education, and childcare provision in particular needs to be expanded.

Bernhard Heinzle, Präsident der AK Vorarlberg

This really got the AK President Heinzle's goat: "Take a look at the proposals and don't just vote against them on principle. This is not in the spirit of an employee parliament!" FPÖ parliamentary group leader Michael Koschat explained that the included legal entitlement to childcare could not work in practice - and therefore the motions were rejected.

Basic child protection
For her part, AK Vice President Manuela Auer from the Social Democratic Trade Unionist Group (FSG) once again insisted on the introduction of a "model region Vorarlberg" for a basic child insurance scheme. "If basic child protection can prevent child poverty, the state must not take a second longer to implement it."

 With the Volkshilfe concept, a ready-to-implement model is already on the table. She received the approval of all parliamentary groups for this initiative, and the SPÖ MP has also already tabled a corresponding motion in the state parliament.

FPÖ proposal was not particularly well received
In order to alleviate the financial hardship of many families, the FCG and Liste Gemeinsam UG also called for an increase in unemployment benefit to at least 70 percent of the last wage or salary. However, the FPÖ's proposal to abolish the CO2 tax in order to ease the burden on the population was rejected by a majority. Comment from Green Party chamber councillor Mario Lechner: "Once again you can see who Putin's friends are in Austria."

There was also a lively discussion about the statutory working week and the proposal by the Federation of Austrian Industries to increase it to 41 hours. An absolute no-go for Heinzle: "All they care about is that employees have to work more and receive fewer bonuses." The social partners are much further ahead in this respect and closer to reality: "In the collective agreements, working hours are adapted to the framework conditions year after year - also with flexible models."

The FSG submitted an urgent motion that the AK General Assembly should speak out against an increase in statutory weekly working hours. Instead, the federal government is called upon to seriously consider a reduction in working hours. The motion was adopted by all parliamentary groups with the exception of the FPÖ.