On the final day of the second round of negotiations for an agreement covering 550,000 workers of 1,900 chemical companies, the IG BCE union won a 14-month wage increase of 4.1%. The increase will become effective at different times in different regions: retroactive to 1 March for chemical workers in North Rhine, Rheinland-Pfalz, and Hessen; on 1 April in Westfalen, Bayern, Baden-Württemberg, Niedersachsen/Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein/Hamburg, and Berlin; and 1 May in Saarland and the North-East. The agreement also gives flexibility for employers still recovering from the economic crisis to effectuate the wage increase in May, while most of the major chemical companies that are on strong standing will have already given the increase. The 2011-12 accord also grants current apprentices an increase of € 35 per month. “Last year, we signed an agreement that was a bridge between crisis and recovery,” said IG BCE President Michael Vassiliadis, “Now, as we predicted, we signed a growth agreement. This shows the social partnership in chemicals remains on solid footing in solving some very difficult problems.”
English: http://www.icem.org/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4362-IGBCE-Carves ...
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.