Trade union IG Metall in Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, together with the employers' associations Metall Lower Saxony/Bremen and the LandBauTechnik-Handwerks- und Handelsverband Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony Association of Crafts and Trades), have reached a collective agreement for employees in the metalworking trades and agricultural engineering in Lower Saxony and Bremen. Effective 1 January 2026, wages and training allowances will increase by 2.9%. The new pay scales will expire on 31 May 2026. A particular success of the negotiations is the so-called member bonus: Anyone who has been a member of IG Metall for at least three months will receive fully paid Christmas Eve (December 24) and New Year's Eve (December 31) off – without having to take vacation. This corresponds to one additional vacation day per year. For everyone else, only 0.5 vacation days will be required for these two days in the future.
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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.