Fierce debate: more vacation for volunteers?
politics
There is no need for an additional week of vacation for volunteers. This is how Salzburg clubs and emergency services react to demands from the Alpine Club. This wants extra days off from employers. The Red Cross and fire brigades see a need for reform elsewhere – in tax relief and in pension law.
Instead of more vacation days, there are other ways of better recognizing volunteer work, says Salzburg’s Red Cross boss and state rescue commander Anton Holzer: “This includes financing modern equipment or counting long-term volunteer work for the pension. We’ve been demanding that for a long time.”
Tax relief has been required for years
Years ago, the former leadership of the Federal Association of the Austrian Mountain Rescue Service called on politicians and the National Council to finally give all volunteers in blue light and rescue organizations a helping hand with recognition under pension law and tax relief. For example, about the deductibility of expenses for equipment and training. Such proposals would possibly come to nothing, mountain rescuers criticize to this day – because political parties and their mandataries did not want to deal with it.
Fire brigade will be “no envy discussion”
For commander Michael Leprich of the volunteer fire brigade in the city of Salzburg, the holiday debate of the Alpine Club is “not enough”, as he emphasizes: “If you talk about compensation, then it has to be well thought out and aimed at training and further education. A new discussion of envy should not arise from this.” In addition, the discussion is not new and reforms have not been discernible so far, said Leprich.
Traditional costume clubs against more holidays
He doesn’t understand this current discussion, says Hannes Brugger, state chairman of Salzburg’s folk culture: “That’s out of the question for us. We work for the cause and for the community.” Other functionaries of folk culture institutions say that many members of the associations can be assigned to mountain farming milieus, where regular vacations as part of farm management are hardly an option anyway.
What does the Alpine Club want?
The umbrella organization of the Austrian Alpine Association (ÖAV) based in Innsbruck has recently been demanding additional vacation days for voluntary work from politicians. This is necessary to make them more attractive. In addition, the ÖAV complains about growing bureaucracy in volunteer work – more on this in tirol.ORF.at (5.12.2022)