In a press release on April 10, 2024, Federal Minister Polaschek surprises with his statement that "he" is planning maximum quotas for fixed-term contracts from 2025. According to a response to a parliamentary question, this is to be laid down in the performance agreements between the ministry and universities for the years 2025 to 2027. The ministry is currently working on defining the quotas. This definition will be a central key point in terms of the extent to which such a quota will have a steering effect towards a more balanced personnel structure.

This announcement gives hope for a possible change of course, as the discussion to date has revolved exclusively around how long, how often and on what grounds fixed-term employment contracts for academic and artistic staff may be strung together. The basis for this was and is the now infamous § 109 UG ("Kettenvertragsverbotsausnahmeparagraph"). This provision allows universities - in contradiction to general Austrian employment law - to chain together two or more fixed-term contracts without objective constraints and was last "improved" in spring 2021. The new version adopted at the time not only contains abstract and indiscriminately defined areas of application, but also postpones the aggregation of some employment relationships by a further eight years.

What was and is the University Union's position?

The wish of the University Union is to finally reverse the trend from the proliferation of multiple fixed-term employment contracts to the standard case of permanent employment contracts. Fixed-term contracts should be limited to manageable phases and objectively justified exceptions.

The amendment proposed by the University Union in 2021 was to reduce the duration of fixed-term contracts to six years with the only exception being a one-off extension to eight years for the completion of third-party funded projects. Only periods of employment as student employees should be disregarded. This clear, lean regulatory proposal would have meant a path towards the normality of employment law under private law - after all, universities were given autonomy with their own legal personality and private employee law more than 20 years ago.

We summarized our position back in September 2022 in a brochure, which you are welcome to distribute.

What is the current situation regarding fixed-term contracts?

Unfortunately, the University Report 2024 announced for the beginning of this year is still not available. The report published in 2020 serves as our starting point for the current situation. According to this report, University Report 2020 p. 83, an average of 78.6% of all academic and artistic staff had fixed-term contracts at the end of 2019, 82% of women and 76% of men. These ratios have not improved significantly, i.e. decreased, even in later studies.

In this context, Schmidt and Wegscheider distinguish between three employment groups in an article published at the end of 2022, which were identified in the analysis of the personnel structure data of the University Report:

• Core staff comprises employees on permanent contracts. This primarily includes the group of professors - both "appointed curia professors" as well as associate professors of old and new type - and the group of senior lecturers and senior scientists. In total, these make up 20% of academic and artistic employees.
• Marginalized employees, who have a limited qualification profile and are all employed on a temporary basis. This group makes up 15% of all employees.
• Flexibilized core workforce, which has a comprehensive qualification profile comparable to the core workforce, but whose term of employment is limited. This includes the majority of university assistants, some senior lecturers, senior scientists, project staff and lecturers - in other words, the majority of the workforce that is essential for the performance of universities. This group makes up 65% of the workforce.

The analyses take into account all employees in the academic and artistic field who are involved in the provision of services at universities and are identified as such. More up-to-date partial data on the situation of university assistants and project staff can be found in the response to a parliamentary question submitted by the SPÖ at the end of March this year. Anyone interested in the specific situation at their location can find the detailed answers at (befristete) Dienstverhältnisse an Österreichischen Universitäten (17115/AB) | Austrian Parliament.

It remains to be seen which calculation basis will be used for the ministry's announced maximum fixed-term employment rate. This has not yet been disclosed and, at the same time, this will be a key point as to the direction in which such a regulation can develop a positive steering effect.

What does the university trade union conclude from this?

The data shows that there is still a very high proportion of fixed-term contracts in the academic and artistic fields. We are of the opinion that Austrian universities, as responsible employers, must offer their staff employment relationships that are commensurate with their outstanding professional expertise, provide them with adequate career opportunities and allow them a "minimum level" of family and life planning.

The Universities Act should create mandatory regulations for binding personnel structure plans at universities, standardize the commitment to permanent employment contracts and limit itself to specific, comprehensibly justified exceptions for fixed-term contracts.

The University Union is committed to open-ended employment contracts as the rule and demands that fixed-term contracts be limited to exceptional cases for which there are concrete and comprehensible reasons. Exceptions must remain exceptions and must not - as is currently the case - be made the norm.

We demand a regulation,

• that takes into account the interests of employees;
• that creates a binding framework for urgently needed personnel structure plans;
• that offers colleagues a perspective: Clear contractual options must be created for the termination of contracts or, in principle, permanent contracts;
• eliminates the proliferation of individual circumstances in the law that cannot be clearly defined;
• which does not pass on the entrepreneurial risk of the universities or the state to the employees.

We will closely monitor and comment on the extent to which Science Minister Polaschek's announcement will finally provide impetus in this direction. For us, it is essential that Austria as a science location becomes attractive, future-oriented, socially acceptable and family-friendly. We will continue to pursue this goal for and with you with all the means at our disposal.