Germany - Hopeful developments in retail and wholesale bargaining - June 16, 2011

Until early June, the collective bargaining round launched in March 2011 in the retail trade was at a dead end. Early in the morning of Friday 10 June, however, a regional agreement was reached in Baden-Württemberg. It provides for a 5% wage increase over 24 months, divided in 3.0% as of 1 June 2011 and 2.0% as of 1 June 2012. Moreover, a €50 once-only payment is foreseen by April 2012. A number of anti-discriminatory arrangements has been included too, in particular favouring young workers. This agreement could be a pilot for the other regions in Germany; against this backdrop the ver.di services union, which already organised warning strikes, is not about to stop yet. For several years, the retail trade, employing nearly 3 million people, has not been negotiating sectoral collective agreements and negotiations are carried out in a rather independent manner locally. Meanwhile, the social partners in wholesale trade, where the economic situation is much better, are starting to store up agreements rapidly negotiated.

English: http://www.planetlabor.com/Articles/plonearticle.2011-06-10.6520815439/

German: http://einzelhandel.verdi.de/tarif/tarifrunde-2011

 

This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2011.

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