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FIG Metall is not available for a new zero round in the metal and electricity industry, but the union approaches its new round of collective bargaining more cautiously than before Verdi in the public sector: it wants a “volume of up to 4 Percentage “. To what extent this volume is used for regular pay increases or to secure jobs, depending on your ideas, works councils and individual company management should be able to determine. The IG Metall board decided Monday as the route for negotiations with the employers that began in December. Verdi was in public service with the demand for pay increases of at least 4.8 percent.
“Economic forecasts assume that the exit from the crisis will last beyond the year 2021,” said IG Metall chief Jörg Hofmann, classifying the situation after the board’s decision. Therefore, the collective bargaining round is “above all a sign of crisis management”.
However, in view of the already existing burdens of part-time work and job cuts, the consequences of the crisis should “no longer be placed on the shoulders of employees,” he warned. Formally, the resolution passed Monday is initially a recommendation for deliberations by IG Metall’s regional collective bargaining commissions. On November 26, the lawsuit should finally be tied up, presumably with a few more details.
No automatic salary increase
The novelty of the concept is that, although the union is making a percentage demand, this should not automatically lead to a general increase in current wages: in companies in crisis, for example, volume could be used to give parts of the force of work a period of four days. – Introduce a week instead of the normal normal working day and pay salary subsidies to those affected so that the reduction in working hours does not depress their income so much. The grants would then reduce salary increases for those colleagues in the company who continue to work fully. In economically strong companies, on the contrary, the total amount would be distributed as a salary increase for all.
The background for this approach is the current extreme differences between individual subsectors and companies in the metal and electrical industry: while many auto suppliers and mechanical engineers are in serious trouble, there are also areas such as medical technology that are barely they are suffering from the crisis and therefore their employees have higher expectations. to the collective bargaining round. IG Metall wants to do this justice with a flexible approach.
According to Hofmann, it is still open how this should be implemented in the collective agreement. A possibility appears to be seen in the construction of a 2018 collective agreement: At that time, IG Metall and the employer had introduced a new additional collective allowance (“T-Zug”), an amount of 27.5 percent of the annual salary, which in principle each metal worker is paid once a year. However, there is the option, under certain conditions, not to use the additional money in euros and cents, but in the form of additional days off. If the new collective wage increase were decided in the form of an increase in this additional allowance, other options could be linked, such as a four-day week with “partial wage compensation,” that is, wage subsidies.
Employers insist on round zero
Another model with a similar objective was established years ago by the bargaining parties of the chemical industry. It is based on company funds, which are fed by an amount defined by a collective agreement: the employer pays part of the collective bargaining increase, so to speak, not to the salary accounts of individual employees, but to a fund joint: works council and management agree on how to use it. In the chemical industry, this pot was introduced in 2008 as a “demographic fund” and is now endowed with 750 euros per employee per year. The parts of the company can then decide to use the money, for example, for a partial retirement, to obtain more qualifications or for an additional pension from the company.
However, employers in the metal and electrical industry show little understanding of the IG Metall course. Even before the debates began to be discussed on their side, they demanded a zero round, and on Monday they confirmed in an initial reaction that the industry is still below pre-crisis levels. Only when the recession has accelerated can one speak of growth “and only then is there any scope for distribution,” said Gesamtmetall chairman Rainer Dulger.
However, it is appreciated that IG Metall wants to take into account the different situation of companies. The current round of collective bargaining was supposed to take place in the spring. Under the impression of the pandemic, IG Metall and the employer initially agreed to an emergency collective agreement. This provided for relief for short-time work and an initially limited zero period at the end of the year.
