Film production constitutes a free trade industry (“freies Gewerbe” in Austrian law) which, as a general rule, must be registered with the government trade authorities. According to the practice of said trade authorities, activities lasting up to three days need not be considered subject to trade ordinances. Should this term be exceeded, registration with the trade authorities must generally be carried out.
EEA production companies (i.e. those with headquarters in an EEA country) may carry out their industry’s activities in Austria, thanks to the freedom of business services they enjoy, as long as they have received the required entitlement to do so in the country of their headquarters.
Trade activities and (from the trade-laws point of view) the subsequent settlement in Austria automatically entail the production company’s membership in the Association of the Audiovisual and Film Industry, the legal representatives of the interests of Austrian film producers. This entails the mandatory application of the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) to labor contracts between said company and non-self-employed workers. In this case, one of two types of CBA can apply: either the CBA for film makers or the CBA for non-film makers.
CBAs only apply to the relationship between film-production company and non-self-employed worker. Persons employed under a “free service contract” are generally not subject to the CBA, whereby it is not a matter of naming the relationship or contract but the actual nature of the work relations.
In contrast to employees, free service employees do their work independently, i.e. predominantly without instructions from the employer and without being bound to a specific workplace. Neither employee nor free service employee are liable for the success of the venture – they merely have to be available to work for the employer for a specific amount of time.
Within the group of free service employees, a further differentiation is made;
- “employee-similar” free service employees and
- entrepreneurial free service employees (“new independents”)
Persons, whose total wages from work or freeservice contracts do not exceed the so-called “petty limit” or “threshold for minimal employment” (d 316,19 gross monthly), are deemed to be “employees with minimal employment status”.