Here you see a game that captures the spirit of the 1950s. The aim of the game called The Smart Citizens is to come together and build a community.

Everyone plays their part and everyone is important: blue- and white-collar workers, farmers, doctors, tradespeople and business people. The game focuses on building consensus instead of conflict.

That is also the approach of the so-called “Social Partnership” that was established in 1946. The Social Partnership is a specific feature of Austrian democracy.

Representatives of the employers—the Economic Chamber and the Chamber of Agriculture—and of the employees—the Chamber of Labour and the Austrian Trade Union Federation—regularly sit down with the government and negotiate to reach compromises on social and economic policies.

Soon after 1945, these four organizations actively joined the economic policy-making processes in an effort to prevent a recession and a sharp rise in inflation. The Social Partners made so-called “wage-price agreements” where they determined fixed prices for both products and wages.
Their aim was to decrease the gap between the cost of living and wages earned, to rebuild trust in the government and to ensure that a social divide, like in the First Republic, did not occur again. The idea behind the Social Partnership was to use negotiations to reach a broad consensus that should benefit as many as possible.

Although the Social Partnership may not have the same influence today that it had in the 1960s and 1970s, it continues to play an important role, for instance, for negotiating wages or education policies. It has come under fire for its lack of transparency in the decision-making process, in which only a select few are involved, and for its reluctance to implement reforms. The Social Partnership is not anchored in any law, but relies on informal agreements.

On the right-hand side of the white cube with the strike poster, you can find strike statistics from Austria. Strikes have been rare during the Second Republic. In fact, there have been fewer strikes in Austria than in any other EU country—with the exception of 2003, where a high column stands out: these were strikes protesting a pension reform that the government implemented without the Social Partnership’s consent.

Today, not going on strike is considered the Austrian way—not least, due to the influential position of the Social Partnership.