Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2025, published 114th ILC session (2026)

Labour Clauses (Public Contracts) Convention, 1949 (No. 94) - Austria (Ratification: 1951)

Article 2 of the Convention. Insertion of labour clauses in public contracts. The Government reports that the 2018 revisions of the Austrian public procurement law do not affect the provisions implementing the Convention. It explains that sections 93 and 264 of the Federal Law on Public Procurement (BVergG 2018) and section 56 of the Federal Law on the Award of Concession Contracts (BVergGKonz 2018) are essentially identical with sections 84 and 241 of the previous Federal Law on Public Procurement (BVergG 2006), whereas section 75 of the Federal Law on Procurement in Defence and Security (BVergGVS 2012) remains unchanged. Pursuant to these provisions, all public procurement procedures conducted in Austria must comply with the obligations arising from the Convention. Moreover, the contracting authority must state in the invitation to tender that tenders for services to be provided in Austria shall be prepared in accordance with Austrian labour and social laws and relevant collective agreements, and the tenders must agree to comply with these regulations if awarded the contract. These provisions must also be complied with during procurement processes where parts of the work are to be performed abroad, for instance, by subcontractors. Except for section 75 of the BVergGVS 2012, the provisions contain a non-exhaustive list of regulations that must be taken into account in the context of public contracts. The Government provides copies of public contracts demonstrating that the contracts either incorporate labour clauses into the tender documents as execution requirements or make an explicit reference to compliance with Austrian labour and social laws. Furthermore, the Government reports that the Federal Administrative Court ruled on cases concerning procurement matters under the BVergG 2006 (sections 64, 84 and 241) and the BVergG 2018 (sections 93 and 264) without, however, referring specifically to the Convention. With regard to the information requested on the number of public contracts awarded per year, the Government refers to the figures provided by the Open Government Data (OGD) and the Tenders Electronic Daily (TED), which indicate that this number has significantly increased over time. It also reports that no statistics are available on the approximate number of workers protected by the federal legislation that implements the Convention.

The Committee notes the information provided by the Government, including its explanation that compliance with the Convention is ensured by referencing Austrian labour and social laws and relevant collective agreements in the invitations to tender. The Committee wishes to recall once again that the Convention requires the conditions to be ensured by labour clauses in public contracts to be aligned with the highest.In view of the above, the Committee requests the Government to take all appropriate measures so as to ensure that the legal framework applicable to public procurement contracts expressly provides for the insertion of labour clauses in public contracts, in accordance with the requirements of the Convention, by:

• providing assurance that the labour clause is expressly included in the actual contract that is finally signed by the public authority and the selected contractor, and not merely referred to in the tender documents.
• confirming that the labour clause requires contractors to apply the most advantageous working conditions prevailing in the locality for the type of work concerned, where such conditions are higher than the statutory minimums.
• indicating what measures are taken or envisaged to collect statistics on the approximate number of workers protected by the federal legislation that implements the Convention and the number of public contracts awarded annually, to enable the Committee to assess the effective application of the Convention in practice.