Excitement in the town hall

Crying secretaries? FPÖ now calls for crisis team

Many redundancies in the town hall cause a political stir in Waidhofen an der Thaya.

(Bild: Huber Patrick)

Following a wave of redundancies at Waidhofen an der Thaya town hall, the president of the provincial parliament, Gottfried Waldhäusl (FPÖ), who is also a councillor there, has sounded the alarm. He wants to introduce a kind of task force for personnel in an urgent motion at the municipal council meeting on Wednesday, April 24. "Pure election campaign bluster!" says Mayor Josef Ramharter (ÖVP), adding that Waldhäusl had already done next to nothing at the time.

Since Josef Ramharter (ÖVP) took office as mayor, the number of redundancies in the town hall and at the business enterprises has risen massively, FPÖ councillor Gottfried Waldhäusl strongly criticizes the city leadership of Waidhofen an der Thaya. Following a further dismissal at the building yard, he now wants to submit a motion to the municipal council on Wednesday, April 24, to create a personnel crisis team. Without retirements and maternity leave, 13 employees would have left the municipality. "That's a third of the core area," says Waldhäus "l.

"Old school... ?
For the Freedom Party member, this is not surprising. Ramharter had already had to leave a company before, because otherwise many key positions would have been terminated: "Now employees are reporting a screaming mayor. crying secretaries are not uncommon. He takes over everything, interferes in the administration, makes mistakes and then holds the employees to account," Waldhäusl describes.

Stirring up trouble before the election
Ramharter, the head of the town, dismisses this as far from the truth and sees it as electioneering: "After Waldhäusl failed to get his way against wind power, this is the next attempt to stir up trouble." Even before his term of office, there had been fierce personnel turbulence in the town hall, the "Krone" reported.

The FPÖ had quickly lost interest in the attempts at clarification announced at the time. Because some people changed their minds after the municipal council decision and took up another job, the number of staff turnover would have been higher. Or after a few weeks, people have realized that the position they took up is not for them after all and they have left again, says the head of the city, describing scenarios that could give the impression of a major change in employees.

The terminations mainly come from those close to the mayor or are key positions.

Gottfried Waldhäusl, FPÖ

"We have two vacancies at the moment and we usually have a lot of applicants," says Ramharter, refusing to accept that the town has a bad reputation as an employer.