ABSTRACT
Austria knows civil service systems at the federal, the provincial and the municipal level. However, public tasks have also been outsourced to agencies and private companies at all levels. Not only state-employed civil servants and contractual agents to whom civil service law applies, but also people employed under “normal” labour law can therefore be considered functionally as employees in the civil service. The different legal relationships have different protection status against dismissal. The original connection between legal protection of the employment relationship and the importance of public tasks, seen from a rule of law perspective demanding economic safeguards to prevent illegal influence, only exists today for the police and the armed forces. Contractual agents benefit from stronger protection against dismissal than “normal” employees, but their economic safeguards cannot be compared to those of civil servants. Since Austria’s accession to the European Union, almost all European legal requirements for general labour law also apply to civil service law. Although fundamental rights guarantees play an important role for state employment, the formally guaranteed right to equal access to public employment is “dead law” in Austria. Employment policy for senior officials often appears a de facto spoils system and an increasing number of de iure political officials work directly in special offices for members of the federal and provincial governments. The civil service system in Austria is to some extent in conflict with the constitution, and this is more or less tolerated by the Constitutional Court.
