Water, Collective Bargaining, Germany

(August 2016) Pay deals at an average of 2.5% in the first half of the year were slightly below the same period last year but delivered a 2% real increase in pay with inflation at only 0.5%. This is the main finding of the regular analysis of collectively negotiated pay deals published by the trade union-linked WSI research institute, part of the Hans Böckler Foundation. The major deals during this period included the 2.4% awarded to federal and local government workers and the 2.8% in the metall sector. Read more at WSI (DE).

(September 2016) Services union ver.di organised warning strikes and a national protest in Berlin against Germany's largest rehabilitation company, Reha. The company gave notice in August that it was ending the current collective agreement and wanted to move to enterprise-level agreements. The union has attacked the company for being a major recipient of public money while denying rights to its workforce. Ver.di is calling for a new agreement and an 8% pay increase covering the 2700 workers institutions in the Eastern region of the company.

(October 2016) The ver.di services union is looking ahead to next year's negotiations for a new collective agreement covering employees in regional government. Along with a general pay increase, the union will be looking for some structural changes including revisions to the pay scale and measures to limit the use of temporary contracts. Ver.di will be organising regional and local consultations with members in preparing its negotiating priorities.

(April 2017) Services union ver.di has signed a key agreement in Bremen that covers around 3200 eldercare workers employed by several non-profit care providers. The union sees this is as a significant step towards better collective bargaining coverage in the sector and helps remove pay and conditions as a factor in competition. Meanwhile the union has also negotiated two new agreements in the health sector, one provides a 7,3% pay increase for 3900 workers at the University Hospital in Leipzig and the other is a 5.1% pay increase for the 24000 employees in 36 hospitals run by the Helios

(May 2017) Services union ver.di reports on two significant bargaining developments in the Sana healthcare company and in the non-profit care sector in the Saxony-Anhalt region. Sana's 10000 workers will get a 2.2% pay rise backdated to 1 January this year and a further 2.2% from 1 February 2018 along with several other improvements to pay and conditions, including two extra days off for ver.di members only. The new pay agreement in Saxony-Anhalt covers 4000 care workers employed by the regional welfare federation and is backdated to 2016 while providing pay increases until 2018. Ver.di sees

The trade union-linked WSI research organisation says that the latest figures indicate 37.7 hours as the average for the collectively agreed working week, with a higher average in the East (38.7) compared to the West (37.6). Across industries the working week varies from 34 to 40 hours with around a fifth of all workers covered by a collective agreement on a 35-hour week. The WSI notes that after a wave of agreements on shorter working hours in the 1980s and 1990s, there has been very little change. In the early 2000s a small number of agreements, including the public sector, experienced an

Members of the services union ver.di have taken strike action in three hospitals as part of the union's campaign to tackle excessive workloads in the sector. The targeted hospitals in Düsseldorf, Ottweiler in Saarland and Dachau, near Munich are respectively public, non-profit and private and ver.di says that none of the three employers has been willing to discuss a collective agreement to reduce workloads. In the meantime, health workers across Germany will be supporting the union's campaign to set limits on workloads and try to reduce the pressure on workers to skip their breaks, to be

Waste workers in northern Germany, members of the ver.di trade union have criticised their employer, Remondis, for switching to a different sector collective agreement. From the beginning of February the company said it would apply the freight and logistics agreement rather than the private waste agreement. The company argues that this makes no difference but the union points out that it delivers no improvements. Ver.di says that drivers are on a starting wage of EUR 11.95 an hour (less in some areas) and that many don't progress from this level. Meanwhile, the Rethmann Group which owns

A meeting of services union ver.di's collective bargaining committee covering federal and municipal workers has unanimously agreed to go for a 6% pay increase with a minimum rise of EUR 200 a month. Other demands include increases for apprentices and trainees, re-establishing the rule that apprentices who successfully complete their training should be offered a job and a 20% increase in the night work allowance in hospitals. Ver.di is aiming for a 12-month agreement and wants to ensure that public sector workers benefit from the current positive economic climate. The union estimates that pay

Over 70000 workers joined the initial round of warning strikes in support of the negotiations covering federal and municipal workers. The focus was on the North-Rhine Westfalia region but further action is planned around the country, involving a broad range of workers from childcare and water to administration and transport. The services union ver.di is determined to secure a real wage increase for all workers, ensuring that any percentage rise is underpinned by a flat-rate amount to benefit lower paid workers.

The ver.di public services union is calling for solidarity for two of its members who have been summarily sacked for their trade union activities. The union has been engaged in a pay dispute with the Celenus group of rehabiliation centres which has around 20 operations in Germany employing over 2100 workers. Carmen Laue and Heike Schmidt, members of the ver.di collective bargaining committee, were sacked for distributing information on strike action. Ver.di has criticised the company for trying to intimidate workers rather than try to resolve the dispute through negotiation. The union is

The trade union-linked research organisation WSI reports that negotiated pay increases across the economy reached 3.1% in the first half of the year, up on the 2.4% recorded in the comparable periods in the last two years. With inflation at 1.7% this means a real increase of 1.4%. The highest increases came in construction (5.2%), metal (4.0%) and the public sector (3.75%), with the last including 4% increases for new starters, lower paid and some specific occupations.