Saubermacher is the kind of company that people rarely talk about publicly, unless something goes horribly wrong. As the leading waste management company in Austria, it has done everything in its power to avoid being in the public eye. For one thing, it’s in the middle of a very sensitive issue about the privatization of public services. People in big cities like Viena, Linz and Salzburg where the waste services are run by the local governments enjoy significantly cheaper waste service fees that the people of Graz or St.Pöllten where people’s waste is treated as a commodity on the market. If a public debate was to take place about whether waste services should be run as a private business, no doubt Saubermacher will end up on the losing side of it. The current status quo where it gets to overcharge the public for something that the government can do much better, is surely the preferred option. No debate needed.

The second reason Saubermacher may not enjoy a public debate about its legitimate status as the waste king is because of its unique position in the Austrian social partnership. The Austrian system was designed to contain and institutionalize class struggle. Every year HR representatives, upper managers and negotiators from the WKO sit opposite table from Betriebsräte and negotiators from the Gewerkschafft to negotiate this year’s KV. The end agreement should protect workers against inflation, allow a quality standard of living and usually make their condition of wage slavery tolerable enough so that it does not spill over into economically costly strikes. This arrangement is far from perfect but it kept Austrian on the top of almost any list of good countries. This gentlemen’s agreement not to rob the working people too much was broken unilaterally by the business side once the age of neoliberalism came in. The old consensus was out the window and was replaced with a kind of free-market fanaticism. Saubermacher is the child of this new era of fanaticism. It sits comfortably in an industry that will always be profitable. By being such a big player, it pretty much gets to make the rules. It works in an industry for which there is no official KV still. This means, their ability to exploit the workers, while limited by the Austrian constitution is almost unchecked by union representation. This ability to sit in an industry that will always be profitable, with poor worker’s protection and basically no accountability to the public is what makes it so undeniably better to stay out of the public eye.

For a company this big, Saubermacher is also unique in not having a Betriebsrat. Companies this size usually have at least a management friendly (or yellow) BR. Saubermacher is too afraid of anyone standing between their managers and the workers. Even a friendly party. Same as Amazon, it’s corporate culture is “we care about our associates who we treat as slaves a lot – we even have a fund for them in case something happens or they get sick. We will also do everything in our power to sabotage their attempts at collective bargaining. The best associate is the one who works like an isolated cog in the machine. He should feel special enough to work hard. But not so special as to deserve genuinely human treatment. The moment he gets any funny ideas about solidarity and working together instead of against his coworkers he is quickly managed out.”

But even companies like Amazon have eventually given in to the pressure. Even though Amazon did everything in its power to sabotage its workers both in Germany and in Austria, the workers have proved that the mega-corporations are not all powerful. Right now the fate of a very important industry, public infrastructure and tens of thousands of workers who deal with stressful bosses, impossible deadlines and ever-more predatorial contracts – is decided in corporate boardrooms with no possibility for the worker or the public to influence. This website will not fundamentally change this. But it will alert the citizens about some dangerous myths regarding private power and waste management as well as provide the workers with the information they need to fight for their rights. If in several years we have a functioning Betriebsrat – this website will more than have fullfiled its purpose.