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An important field of negotiations is the annual wagę setting process:    Increases of minimum wages are bargained over

collectively by the unions and the business associations. These wagę increases are essentially uniform sińce they are based on the average productivity growth of the economy and not on the growth ratę of certain sectors or Industries. Also, a common forecast of the expected inflation ratę is taken into account in the negotiations (Wagner 1985, p.192).

This wagę policy is designed to prevent mass consumption power from differing too much from GDP. A side effect of this policy is the stability of the personal income distribution of the employed. Business profits and the incomes of the self-employed vary greatly depending on the industry concerned, because firms with productivity data below average are forced to achieve an increase in productivity growth.

In periods of economic prosperity, mostly the trade unions have gained from the system of Social Partnership, Certain variables which are normally determined by market forces here depend on a bargaining process which means a redistribution of power. Even strategie decisions which are elsewhere the sole right of

Capital owners have to be co-determined by workers in Austria.

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Therefore the initiative to keep the system of Social Partnership alive has mostly come from the unions (Marin, p.45).