Trade union IG Metall has reached an important agreement for employees in the Hessen, Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, and Lower Saxony in the 2025 automotive collective bargaining round. Wages will increase by 2.3% starting in July 2025, followed by a further 3.3% from August 2026. Apprentices can look forward to an additional € 80 per month – in both stages. A central element of the new collective agreement is the option to choose between pay and time. Employees can receive up to five additional days off per year. This is made possible by the new "WorkFlex+" agreement, which for the first time enshrines genuine time sovereignty in the automotive trades. Almost 25,000 employees have participated in warning strikes and actions nationwide in recent weeks.
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For more information, please contact Paul de Beer or Oana Ciuca, De Burcht (Scientific Bureau for the Dutch Trade Union Movement) p.t.debeer@uva.nl or the Head of communications at the ETUI, Mehmet Koksal mkoksal@etui.org. For previous full issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit https://www.etui.org/Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter or consult the archive with all articles in our database at www.cbnarchive.eu.
You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org.