The collective bargaining archive of the WSI documents with regular publications the development of wages and bargaining outcomes. Data on the integration of the former East German states in the collective bargaining system reveal that at the level of the negotiated wages the wage gap has almost disappeared, 25 years after the German unification. On average, the negotiated wages are still 3% lower, but in several sectors, the differences in wage level have disappeared. If the companies that not covered by bargaining results are included and the real wages are calculated, than the gap is substantially higher (17%).
German: http://www.boeckler.de/impuls_2015_14_1.pdf
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.